


Tending Roses

by Realmer06



Series: Roses Trilogy [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Harry Potter Next Generation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-11
Updated: 2013-06-11
Packaged: 2017-12-14 15:17:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 42,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/838374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Realmer06/pseuds/Realmer06
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Scorpius didn't have feelings for Rose. I fully believed that. But as I lay there awake, thinking about it, I discovered how natural it was to add one word to the end of that statement. Scorpius didn't have feelings for Rose. Yet." Al plays matchmaker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the final companion to Among Thorns and Fighting Briars, though it can stand on its own. I give you, the Meddlesome Al, in his own words!
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I do not own Al or Rose or Scorpius. These are my imaginings of them, but at the end of the day, they are JK's and JK's alone.

_Chapter One_

* * *

I was eight years old the first time I heard the magic words. I realize this is an interesting statement coming from someone who performed his first bit of accidental magic at the age of three, but you have to understand that I'm not talking about an incantation or a bit of vocal spellwork. I'm talking about the three words that changed my life.

It was my uncle who said it first. My Uncle Ron. My parents were on holiday in Ireland, celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary, and my brother and sister and I were spending the week with my Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron. Near the end of our stay, there was a misunderstanding between my aunt and uncle that led to a furious and stifling silence that lasted most of an entire day. Finally, I couldn't take the tension anymore, and I went back and forth between my aunt and uncle, figured out where the miscommunication had occurred, and helped clear things up.

When my parents came to pick us up the next day, they heard all about the fight from my sister Lily, who is, I firmly believe, completely incapable of keeping a secret. To give you a clearer picture of this, I will only say that they had scarcely opened the door and stepped inside before Lily had blurted out the entire story, words flying out of her mouth a mile a minute.

With a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth, Dad hoisted Lily into his arms while raising an eyebrow in my aunt and uncle's direction, both of whom looked slightly sheepish after Lily's enthusiastic version of events.

"A slight misunderstanding," Aunt Hermione admitted, embarrassed.

"S'all right, though," my uncle said gruffly, reaching out to ruffle my hair. "Al fixed it."

 _Al fixed it_. Three very simple words with a very mundane meaning, yet they changed my life completely. I could _fix_ things. I could _help_ people. I could find things that were wrong, and I could make them better.

My uncle had no idea what he'd unleashed.

I was eight years old when I learned that I could fix things. I was twenty-one before I learned that I shouldn't always try. But that comes much later, and if you're going to understand what came to pass, I need to spend a little more time on my childhood. Actually, before I do that, I suppose I should introduce myself.

My name is Al Potter, and yes, I am the son of Harry Potter, and no, that is not at all important to the story I am about to tell. In fact, I think my father only makes a handful of physical appearances, if that many. I'm terribly sorry if that disappoints you in any way, but the truth of the matter is, there have been plenty of stories written about my father, and if you're that interested, it shouldn't be difficult to find and hear one of them. My story is not about him or my mother or my aunt and uncle or the war and its aftermath, at least, not directly. My story is about myself and my cousin Rose and my best friend Scorpius and one of the most important lessons I have learned in my life, one that I feel is worth sharing, though I know I'm probably not the best storyteller around.

So. My childhood.

From the time we were young, my cousin Rose was my best friend. There were a number of factors that contributed to this, such as the fact that she is exactly six days older than I, the fact that our parents are best friends, and the fact that we live an easy broomstick ride away, but all these similarities would have meant nothing if we hadn't also been similar in personality. We were both quiet but curious children, quite clever, quite particular, and quite easily irritated by my loud and overbearing older brother. Rose bore the brunt of James's pranks almost as often as I did, and we bonded over rolling our eyes at his idiocy.

Rose had been my best friend since we were toddling around in diapers, is the main point, and while I'm not normally an on-edge or nervous kind of person, the thought of what might happen to that friendship when both of us reached Hogwarts was one that weighed heavily on my mind in the weeks leading up to our departure.

I had somehow managed to convince myself that Rose and I were destined for a parting of the ways once we reached school. She was, after all, the Golden Girl; everything she put her hand to just worked for her – except broomsticks, but what did that really matter in the scheme of things? The point was, Rose, for all that she was a relatively quiet person, was very engaging, very friendly, very outgoing, and I wasn't (in hindsight, of course, that isn't at all true. I'm just as engaging, friendly, and outgoing as Rose is; it's just that, at eleven, I had trouble seeing myself that way). Once we got to Hogwarts, she would be surrounded by rings of admirers and no longer have any need for her cousin to be her best friend. I was certain of it, and I was determined not to hold her down, but I was dreading it all the same, because there was some part of me that just knew I wasn't going to be any good at making friends.

This irrational worry festered for far too long, and that is part of what allowed James to get under my skin so easily. It was the last day of August, and I was sitting in my room methodically checking things off the list of everything I had to do before I left. Then James bounded into my room and flopped down on the bed. "So," he said. "You excited about Hogwarts?" I could tell by the tone of his voice that this conversation wasn't heading in any good direction, so I just answered shortly, "Yes."

"You're gonna love it," he said with a grin. "It's great. There's flying lessons and defense classes and all the food and Hagrid – you're bound to have a good time, even if you do end up in Slytherin."

"What?" I snapped, turning sharply to face him. If I hadn't been strung so tightly already, I would have just rolled my eyes and ignored him. But the truth is, I'd never really given a lot of thought to the Sorting; I'd just been trying to make it to the school. "What do you mean, end up in Slytherin?"

"Well, it's a possibility, is all," he said in a voice that was perfectly reasonable – and therefore suspect. "I wouldn't worry about it though, Al. I mean, I doubt Mum and Dad'll care, though Uncle Ron and Uncle George'll probably have something to say about it. But really, it's not a big deal."

"Who said I'm going to end up in Slytherin?" I demanded.

"Well, no one," he said innocently. "But it is one of the Houses, Al. You've got a one in four chance. You just shouldn't rule it out, is all."

"It doesn't work like that," I snapped.

"Okay," he said and left.

"It doesn't!" I yelled after him. But it was too late. He'd gotten to me. And I know he shouldn't have, but he did. I hardly slept at all that night, between worrying about Rose not being my best friend anymore and worrying that James might be right about my Sorting. It was highly uncharacteristic for me.

The car ride to the station was not fun. And I finally broke down and, though I knew it was a stupid question that was beneath me to have to ask, I did ask Dad about what James had said. Dad made a point of never lying to us. If we asked him a question, he would answer honestly and candidly, just like he did with that question about the Sorting. I love my Dad for many reasons, but what he said to me that morning on the Platform is one of the highest ranking. Because he brought Al back. He forced me to calm down and reassess the situation. I was finally able to consciously recognize that I was being ridiculous.

With his advice in my ears, I was able to board the train, confident in the knowledge that it didn't matter where I ended up at school. I stood in the passageway of the train and watched the platform and my family until they faded away into the fog and there was nothing left to be seen.

So one of my two worries was assuaged, and the second was soon to follow it, for the platform had no sooner disappeared from sight than Rose was behind me. I was alerted to her presence by a forceful and rather unnecessary punch to the arm.

"Ow!" I protested loudly, rubbing my arm. "What was that for?"

"You're not going to abandon me once we get to Hogwarts, are you?" she demanded in a accusatory tone. I frowned at her.

"Of course not," I said, as if I hadn't been worried that she was going to do the exact same thing. "You're my best friend, Rose." She looked at me warily for a long moment, then said, "Okay," and that was that.

Now, if someone else was writing my story, what would probably come next would be something along the lines of:

'The first thought that entered my head the first time I really laid eyes on Scorpius Malfoy was, _This is my chance to change the past and overcome the already drawn lines I refuse to let the war put me in_.'

I mean, doesn't that make for exciting, suspenseful reading? And everyone already seems to believe it. Trouble is, it's not true. My first thought when I saw Scorpius Malfoy was, _Thank God, here's an almost empty compartment and maybe this boy will let us sit with him._ I didn't even realize who he was until Rose pointed it out to me.

Our friendship with Scorpius was never something that we planned one way or the other. We didn't become friends with him to break down the barriers of the past, and we didn't become friends with him in some kind of act of defiance against our parents (both of which I've heard, by the way). We became friends with him because he was nice and engaging and clever. Also, on my end, he was the first person I'd ever met with a worse name than mine.

Our first real conversation (the part that happened after he and Rose had this ridiculous little face-off and then got over it) went like this:

"Rose Weasley," she said, holding out her hand to him.

"Scorpius Malfoy," he said with a grin, taking it. "And yes, I already know my name is horrid."

"Al Potter," I said, sitting next to him, "and I think I may have you beat."

Scorpius arched an eyebrow. "With Al? No, I'm sorry. Al is not worse than Scorpius."

"No," I agreed. "But Albus may be." Scorpius narrowed his eyes in consideration.

"Middle name?" he asked.

"Severus," I replied. Scorpius winced.

"Pretty bad," he conceded. "But I'm not sure it beats Hyperion."

"Oof," Rose said in sympathy. But I wasn't willing to concede the fact so quickly.

"Scorpius Hyperion is pretty awful, and may indeed be worse than Albus Severus," I said. "But are you named after dead people?"

"No, but I am named after constellations." I shook my head.

"Not as bad," I informed him.

"Okay," he said, conceding the point. "But, you can use a nickname. You go by Al, not Albus. I, on the other hand, can't. Scorpius does not shorten well." Rose giggled. He glanced at her. "You're calling me 'Scorp' in your head right now, aren't you?" he asked. Rose nodded, her face scrunched in silent laughter. Scorpius sighed the sigh of the long-suffering. "See?" he said to me, and I couldn't help but smile.

"In the face of your logic, I can hardly disagree. It seems I've lost my title as Worst Named Individual." And I held out my hand to Scorpius.

"I may have you both beat, though," Rose said. We turned to her as one and said, in unison, "Your name is Rose." Rose laughed.

"Not me," she said. "A friend of my parents had twin boys a few years ago, Lorcan and Lysander."

"They're bad, but I think I still win," Scorpius said.

"Yes, but they're Luna and Rolf's," Rose said to me. It took me a moment, then I groaned because she was right.

"What?" Scorpius asked.

"Lysander Scamander," I said. Scorpius grimaced.

"You're right," he said finally, with a decisive nod. "At least mine doesn't rhyme. Thank you, Rose. I shall love you forever for removing the title of Worst Named Individual from me."

Rose blushed true Weasley red at those words and quickly began talking about something else.

Now before you start to roll your eyes, no, I did not immediately begin matchmaking these two at the age of eleven. I have more sense than that. But I noticed it, and I decided to watch and see where it went.

And in the meantime, we were friends, the three of us. We all had a lot in common, and a lot of that was the stigma attached to us because of who our parents were. The three of us were the only ones who didn't care, it sometimes seemed, and we had an unspoken agreement from very early on that we would never let who our families were be important to us.

Unfortunately, the rest of the school wasn't ready to extend the same courtesy. See, here's the thing about having famous parents (or infamous ones, in Scorpius's case). Everyone knows everything about them, whether they do or not, and everyone has expectations. You'd better be prepared to be exactly like at least one of your parents or be just as extraordinary in a completely different way. And if you can't claim either of those, you'd better be prepared to face extraordinary disappointment. There is constant pressure to measure up. Not from my parents, thank Godric, but from almost everyone else. The name was an added burden.

James was named for our grandfather and grand-godfather, who were two of the biggest mischief makers Hogwarts had ever seen, and since he had a similar nature, he had it easy. He was just his usual, irritating self, and everyone was willing to excuse it on that basis, and he was able to get away with a hell of a lot of stuff that he _never_ would have gotten away with at home.

But what the hell are you supposed to do when you look just like your father, have your grandmother's famous eyes, and are named for the greatest Headmaster in five centuries _and_ the man who bullied an entire generation of students, was in love with your grandmother, killed the aforementioned beloved Headmaster, and saved your father's life on more than one occasion? I'd say it was a lot to live up to, but that's not even the half of it. Most of the battle was sorting out which half of my own personal dichotomy I was supposed to be living up to. My parents should consider themselves lucky that I didn't turn out to be extraordinarily messed up. Just saying.

Anyway, back on track, the night we were Sorted, we walked into that Great Hall with our houses already assigned to us, at least in everyone's minds. Rose and I, as children of the great war heroes, would head for Gryffindor and eternal glory (if we proved worthy of it), while Scorpius would follow his father's footsteps straight into Slytherin and a life of shame and crime (whether he deserved it or not).

So when the Hat yelled out "RAVENCLAW!" for not one, not two, but all three of us? It sent the school into pandemonium. No one knew what to _do_ with themselves, including Rose and Scorpius. Me? I was fine, and probably the only one in the Hall to be able to claim that. And here I've gone and given away part of the story before we've even really gotten to it. My apologies. If you want the suspense back, just forget that I mentioned we were all Sorted into Ravenclaw. Then what happens next will be as surprising for you as it was for everyone else in the room.

Scorpius was the first of us to be Sorted. He sat with the Hat on his head for maybe ten seconds, hands clutching the side of the stool so hard his knuckles were bright white. Then the Hat shouted "RAVENCLAW!" and I have never seen anyone's face so pale and shocked as Scorpius's when the Hat was lifted from his head. He stumbled vaguely toward the Ravenclaw table as the Hall erupted into whispers. I tried to give him an encouraging smile and a thumbs up, but he didn't see me. From the look on his face, he wasn't seeing much of anything. I chalked it up to shock, and waited calmly for my name to be called.

A few names later, "Potter, Albus," rang out, and I made my way up to the stool, ignoring the way people were craning to get a look at me. Before the Hat had even finished settling on my head, I was addressing it.

 _Excuse me. Mr. Hat?_ I thought as directly as I could.

I think the Hat was completely taken aback.

 _Yes, Mr. Potter?_ The Hat sounded . . . expectant, almost.

_My dad told me you'd take my choice into consideration?_

_Your father was not wrong,_ was the response I got.

 _Okay then, so before you go poking 'round in my head, I'd just like to tell you where I'd like to be. Is that all right?_ I asked. I thought it best to be courteous. I could have sworn I heard the Hat chuckle.

 _Yes, Mr. Potter._ Looking back, I know it was a little silly, seeing as how the Hat probably already knew what I was going to say at that point. But the Hat, to its credit, simply let me proceed.

 _Well, if you please, I'd like to be put into Ravenclaw_ , I told it.

 _May I ask why?_ It said politely. I took a deep breath and answered.

 _Well, I'm smart, and I really like to learn. I dunno about wisdom or anything, but maybe that'll come later? And anyway, my friend Scorpius, well, he went to Ravenclaw, and I don't want him to be in a strange House alone. I know I can still be friends with him if we're in different houses, but it wouldn't be the same, you know? And I think he could use a friend in his house._ I was finished speaking, but the Hat didn't say anything, so I continued awkwardly. _And . . . well, that's about it, really. I don't have much else to say about it._

 _You are an interesting character, Mr. Potter_ , the Hat said then. _You have shown great courage and confidence in addressing me, and true loyalty on behalf of a boy who I know was not your friend only a few hours ago. Also, you have proven yourself to be quite calculating in the way you have presented your argument._ I got a little nervous, hearing that. I'd gone into the encounter with such certainty in where I'd end up, but I'd just been told I'd shown qualities of all the houses. And one of them I didn't much like.

 _I don't want to be calculating_ , I said hesitantly.

 _Nonsense,_ the Hat said briskly. _Calculating isn't a negative trait in and of itself, young Mr. Potter._

_You mean . . . if I use it for a positive purpose, it becomes positive?_

_Precisely._ That was a new and interesting concept to think about, but there were more pressing matters at hand, so I stored it away for later.

_But . . . if I have qualities for all the houses, how do you decide where to put me?_

_There are a number of factors that I use to Sort students._

_Like what?_ I asked. I was, at that point, aware that the Hat and I had been chatting for more than a few minutes, far longer than anyone else had spent with the Hat, and people were starting to get tense and ill at ease, but I was fascinated.

_A combination of inherent qualities, likelihood and direction for growth, choice, and personality, among other things._

_Blood?_ I asked.

 _No_ , I was assured. _But I do consider how the student might fit in with the others in a particular house._

_Is that why there never used to be Muggleborns in Slytherin?_

_Not never,_ the Hat said quickly. _But seldom, yes. I had to make sure the few that ended up there would be able to withstand the attitude._

 _Do you remember every student you've ever Sorted?_ I asked then.

_I do, yes, but if we do not move on with this one, that trend may end._

_Oops . . . sorry,_ I said with a sheepish grin. The Hat truly laughed at that.

 _No apology necessary, Mr. Potter,_ it said. _This has been . . . enlightening. I should not mind having further conversations with you one day. But for now, we must part ways. You are an extraordinary child, Albus Severus Potter. And you have a lot to live up to, but only half of it is your family and your name._

 _And what's the other half?_ I asked, almost terrified to hear the answer.

_Your potential. Good luck to you._

And then it shouted "RAVENCLAW!" and I cheerfully handed the Hat back to Professor Flitwick and made my way down to the Ravenclaw table, ignoring the whispers that had broken out all over the Hall. I slid in next to Scorpius and tried to grin at him, but he was refusing to meet my eye, choosing instead to stare broodingly at his empty plate.

Anyway, you would think, after seeing both Scorpius and myself get Sorted into Ravenclaw, that Rose would jump at the chance to be Sorted there as well. At least, that's what I thought at the time. But Rose reacted just as Scorpius had.

It was pretty frustrating, not gonna lie. I mean, we'd had a whole conversation on the train about where we wanted to be placed, and all three of us had said Ravenclaw. I'd even shared the wonderful piece of knowledge that we all had a choice. So you'd think there'd have been some rejoicing. But no. Stricken looks and pale faces and unison responses of "What's my dad gonna say?" when I asked them what the problem was.

So there it was. The heart of the matter. The problem that needed fixing. Immediately, my mind set to work. How could I get my two best friends excited about their house and the fact that we were all together? Simple! Get their parents to be fine with it.

Rose was easy. In my letter home that night, I told my parents how excited I was with being a Ravenclaw and having Rose there with me, and I made sure to say that I knew Rose was excited, if a little nervous that Uncle Ron wouldn't approve. That ensured that my mother would take care of anything Aunt Hermione wouldn't, but the truth is, I was never worried about Rose anyway. Her parents adored her, her dad especially. I was pretty sure she was incapable of doing wrong in their eyes.

Scorpius was harder. When the seven of us first year Ravenclaw boys were taken to our room, we immediately claimed our bunks and all sat down to write letters home, as I'm sure every first year at Hogwarts has since the beginning of time. I finished mine fairly quickly, and glanced over at Scorpius, who looked quite distressed, still staring at a blank page.

"What am I supposed to say, Al?" he whispered miserably. "How am I supposed to tell them?" I started to say, _Just do it, man_ , but then, I got An Idea.

"Wait til tomorrow," I told him. He stared at me.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, tomorrow, you'll have a whole day's worth of classes to talk about, won't you? It won't just be your Sorting, it'll be everything, your professors and classmates and everything." His eyes lit up.

"Yeah," he said with something like a smile. "Yeah, that's a great idea, Al. Thanks!" I grinned back.

"No problem," I told him. And he stood up to get ready for bed while I immediately pulled a fresh sheet of parchment toward me. Scorpius frowned.

"Didn't you finish your letter home?" he asked, puzzled.

"This one's for Lily," I said with a good-natured roll of my eyes. "She'll never forgive me if she doesn't get her own letter." Which was true, but I hope I don't need to tell you that I wasn't really writing to Lily, right? This is the letter I wrote:

_Dear Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy,_

_Hello. You don't know me, but my name is Al Potter, and I'm friends with your son, Scorpius. We met on the train yesterday, and we really hit it off, him and me and my cousin Rose. And now we've made it to school and had the feast and been Sorted, all three of us, and the reason Scorpius isn't writing to you is because he doesn't know how to tell you that he (and I and Rose) got Sorted into Ravenclaw. He's afraid you're going to be mad at him or disappointed in him or something, but if you are, you really shouldn't be. Scorpius wants to be in Ravenclaw, he told me so on the train. And he's really smart and clever, and he's going to fit into this house really well. So I think you should be happy for him and be proud for him, if you weren't already, of course. And I just wanted to write and tell you so, so that when Scorpius writes himself tomorrow, it won't come as such a shock._

_Thank you for your time,_

_Al Potter_

_PS - Scorpius doesn't know I'm writing to you, and I'd appreciate it if you could keep that a secret. Thanks!_

I know. Brilliant, right? Maybe not so much in hindsight, but in the moment, it was the best thing I could have done to help my new friend, and as meddlesome as it may seem, I assure you that my intentions were good. But you perhaps are familiar with that old phrase about good intentions?

But I am getting ahead of myself once again. The important thing to know here is that Mrs. Malfoy wrote back. The day after I sent my owl to her, I received one in return, a letter that did absolutely nothing to curb my enthusiastic desire to fix the problems in the world around me.

 _Dear Mr. Al Potter_ , it read.

_I want to thank you most sincerely for your letter. Clearly, Scorpius has found a true and steadfast friend. And you are quite correct in your assessment of his character – he is intelligent and clever, and though he may not believe this when he hears of it, his Sorting into Ravenclaw House is not truly a great surprise to either his father or myself. I will set your mind at ease in the same way that I hope to set his at ease when he feels comfortable enough to write and tell us of his Sorting: there is no disappointment to be felt, and no anger to be had._

_I hope you will not consider it too forward to say that I believe you to be, Mr. Al Potter, quite an extraordinary young man. There are not many who would display the amount of loyalty and concern as you have for someone so recently called a friend. It is my sincerest hope that the friendship you have started with my son continues and grows, because anyone would be lucky to have such a friendship with you._

_Yours Most Sincerely,_

_Astoria Malfoy_

_PS - Your secret is safe with me._

The glow inspired by Mrs. Malfoy's letter stayed with me for quite a long time. Once again, I had done it! I had fixed something, and that glow was never as strong as when Scorpius found the courage to write home and received his own warm and happy response from his mother. I watched him relax into a sigh of relief and a smile upon reading her words, and I thought, _I did that_ , in the ego-centric way of adolescents.

And so, safe in the assurances that our parents were not about to disown us, Rose and Scorpius and I were able to relax and jump head-first into our schooling.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter Two_

* * *

It will come as a surprise to no one, but all three of us – Rose, Scorpius, and myself – thrived in an academic setting. We'd been waiting our whole lives to come to Hogwarts and learn to cast spells and brew potions, and I'd be lying if I said that none of us had sneaked a look into our parents' or uncles' or cousins' old textbooks in the months prior to our first year.

There were those, I am sure (namely my Uncle Ron), who hoped that, as time went on, the friendship between myself and Rose and Scorpius would dissolve, but he was to be disappointed, for as time went on, our friendship just grew stronger until we were inseparable. The Second Golden Trio, I've heard some call us, though I'm pretty sure that nickname didn't come about until well after we were out of school.

But the fact is aside from the bond we shared of that first train ride, the three of us found something in each other that few other people in the school could have offered us, and that's the stigma of Child of Legend. See, there's a difference between being a child of a Legend and a child of a Hero. Everyone was a child of a Hero because everyone who survived the Year of the Death Eaters at Hogwarts was seen as a hero. There was a camaraderie between the families that put their children on an equal level. But my dad and my aunt and uncle were outside of that because they'd been outside of that year. They were legends, even among their peers, and that made our status as their children altogether different. We were seen in a different light.

Rose and I had been sheltered from this for most of our lives, and we'd never really realized or understood its extent until we came to school and didn't have our parents to protect us from the limelight. And don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly grateful to my parents that they gave me a relatively normal childhood. But once at school, Rose and I were both at a slight disadvantage because we just didn't know how to handle the strange attention.

But Scorpius did. He'd lived the opposite side of our coin his whole life. And he became invaluable. After all, an Infamous Legend is still a Legend, and in Scorpius, Rose and I finally found someone that we could talk to about the pressure and the unfair expectations and how badly we just wanted to be normal. It was this more than anything that cemented our friendship firmly and unshakeably into place. Not that we spent all our time sitting around talking about that. We were kids, after all. We complained about homework and we told bad jokes and we goofed around. We were normal friends, once we found a friendship that allowed us to be.

At school, we excelled. You might think that, as Ravenclaws, that went without saying, but that's a common misconception. I mean, yes, Rose flew quickly and naturally to the top of the class and pretty much stayed there our entire seven years of schooling, but that was due more to the fact that she's her mother's daughter than the fact that she's a Ravenclaw. And the students directly behind her in the standing weren't Scorpius and myself; they weren't even Ravenclaws. Ravenclaws care about learning, about acquiring knowledge, yes. But for the most part, a larger emphasis is put on doing our best rather than being "the best." We leave that level of competition to the Gryffindors. In short, we tend to care much more about whether we're meeting our potential individually and how much we're learning than whether or not we're doing better than everyone else.

And the three of us quickly found our strengths. Maybe this is just the knowledge of who we became coloring my remembrance of the past, but Scorpius took to Defense Against the Dark Arts like he was born to do it. Personally, I took to Potions and Herbology, largely because of the connections both subjects had to Healing, and the fact that I was going to be a Healer was a foregone conclusion pretty early on in my schooling. And then there was Rose, who had no one specialty because she took to everything like a duck to water. Everything she touched just worked for her, if you don't count flying lessons, and somehow, no one seems to. Her favorite subject was Transfiguration, if that counts for anything, but trying to identify her worst class was like trying to determine which of Hagrid's pets over the years was the least insane. They're all pretty much on the same level.

Anyway, when it came time to sign up for our extra classes at the end of second year, those strengths came into play. I knew I wanted to be a Healer, so I signed up for Care of Magical Creatures (because learning to care for animals would have crossover properties to caring for humans), Ancient Runes (because ancient texts might offer new insights, and even if they didn't, decoding skills could be applied in a variety of ways), and Muggle Studies (purely because I knew Professor Brocklehurst would let me do a comparative study of Muggle and Magical healing practices as part of my NEWT independent project). Scorpius and Rose were both in Care of Magical Creatures and Ancient Runes with me, but they had signed up for Arithmancy instead of Muggle Studies, and I think it hit all of us at about the same time that we wouldn't all have the same schedule in third year. And that wasn't the only thing that was changing.

Between our second and third year, Rose became a girl. Okay, yes, she'd always been a girl, but she hadn't _looked_ like a girl. She'd been scrawny and flat as a beanpole and other things she'd hit me for if she heard me using them to describe her. But over that summer, she gained a figure and started wearing makeup and doing her hair and things like that. To be honest, it happened so gradually that I, who was spending most of the summer in her presence, didn't notice it, at least not until we got to the platform on September first and all the guys were staring. And then Scorpius came up and looked at her with a frown and said, almost accusingly, "Are you wearing _makeup_?" and I suddenly had a moment of panic much like the one I'd had two years prior.

It was weird for a pretty girl to be friends with two guys, right? That's what I was thinking. It was weird, and it would be off-putting and Rose would soon decide that she'd rather spend her time with girls, and so she'd slowly grow apart from Scorpius and I, and there wasn't anything we could do to stop it, and oh, this year was going to be just awful!

In times of unexpected stress, I think I have a tendency to slightly overreact.

But then Rose grimaced and answered him with a, "Yes, because I have spots on my face the size of dragon eggs. I hate hormones!" and then everything was fine again.

It took about a year, but eventually, Rose got herself a boyfriend. The reason it took so long was not lack of interest, let me assure you. There was plenty of interest in Rose's direction, most of it unwelcome (to Scorpius and I, that is. Rose was kind of oblivious). No, the reason it took so long was twofold. One, Rose really did seem utterly unaware of how attractive she was and of how most of the boys in the school looked at her. And two, Scorpius and I _did_ see how most of the boys in the school looked at her, and we knew the reason why, so we took it upon ourselves to serve as Rose's big brothers in absentia, being generally menacing and threatening and scaring the boys away.

But just after Christmas of our fourth year, Joey Towler got through our admittedly weak line of defense, much to our dismay. And he talked smooth and was quite the flatterer, and Rose said yes and dated him for four months. Neither Scorpius nor I were particularly happy about it, as Joey Towler of Gryffindor was exactly the kind of guy we'd been trying to keep away from Rose, and we couldn't understand what Rose saw in him, but we agreed to let her have her relationship, at the same time agreeing that the moment he hurt her in any way, he was gone.

In the end, though, Rose ended things on her own, and when we asked her why, she gave us an off-handed, "Oh, because he was cheating on me." Scorpius and I did not take this news well.

"What?" I demanded loudly, while Scorpius just sat with a tight jaw and a black look that made me very glad I was not Joey Towler.

Rose sighed and looked up from her work. "Guys, please. I already broke up with him, I'm not heartbroken, so please don't feel the need to go avenge my honor? Please?"

And I forced myself to calm down, because she really didn't seem upset about it. I thought Scorpius and I would have a furious rant that night about the kind of idiotic fools who would cheat on someone like Rose, and then that would be that. Which is more or less what happened, except for the part where Scorpius strode purposefully into the library the next afternoon, straight for the table where Rose and I were working, clearly a man on a mission and declared, "I want you to hear it from me first. Yes, I just put Joey Towler in the Hospital Wing."

I stared, but Rose just sighed and rubbed at her eyes. "Scorpius, I told you to leave it alone," she said in a gentle reprimand, but Scorpius was already interrupting.

"Wasn't going to happen," he said flatly. "He disrespected you, Rose, and you know what? You shouldn't date tossers anymore. And Joey Towler is, perhaps, the greatest tosser of them all. Why did you go out with him in the first place?"

Rose shrugged and looked embarrassed, which was fairly uncommon for her. "No one had ever asked me out before, and I was flattered," she admitted, and I felt a twinge of guilt at that, since the reason that no one had ever asked her out was because Scorpius and I had kept them from doing so, so you could argue that the whole situation was partially our fault. I seemed to be the only one battling this guilt, though, because Scorpius just slid into the seat next to Rose and took her hands like I wasn't even there.

"Rose," he said with a startling intensity, "you should not be flattered when guys ask you out. They should be flattered if you say yes."

There was definite blushing from my dear cousin at that, the tips of her ears going Weasley red. And though she says she looks like a tomato when she blushes, the truth is, Rose Weasley blushes very prettily.

And because that's the third mention I've made to the fact that Rose is undeniably pretty, I feel the need to defensively state that I am fully capable of objectively recognizing Rose's attractiveness without personally being attracted to her. Because, ew. Back to the story.

"All that being said," Scorpius continued, "I am proud of you, Rose. Of the many mistakes he's made recently, Towler told me in quite vulgar terms _why_ he cheated on you, and I'm proud of you." Rose's blush deepened at that. Clearly, she knew to what Scorpius was referring. I, on the other hand, was quite lost. But I didn't get a chance to ask for a clarification, because Scorpius was standing and saying, "And with that, I need to go see Professor Flitwick about a detention and Madame Pomfrey because my hand really hurts a lot." It wasn't until that moment that Rose and I both noticed that the knuckles of his right hand were bruised and swollen.

"Scorpius!" Rose exclaimed, and the reprimand was there again. "When you said you sent him to the Hospital Wing, I assumed you hexed him or something!"

"No, I punched him in the face," Scorpius said simply. "And, you know, other places. Gotta go." And with that he was gone.

Rose went back to her work, shaking her head and muttering, but looking flattered nonetheless. I watched Scorpius' retreating back with the first wonderings of whether or not there was something between my two best friends. I stared at the place where Scorpius had been, and I stared at Rose, thousands of half-formed possibilities flooding my mind. And then I stopped staring at where Scorpius had been and just stared at Rose, waiting for her to look my way.

She was able to ignore me for what was really an impressive amount of time, all things considered, but eventually, I wore her down. I am relentless like that.

"What, Al?" she asked in a weary voice when she finally put her quill down.

"I couldn't help but notice a certain disparity surrounding that conversation," I said.

"In comparison to . . . ?"

"In comparison to how you would have responded had _I_ been the one to send Joey Towler to the hospital wing." She gave me her sarcastic, 'Oh, yes, Al, do continue,' look, but I was not swayed. I pressed my point. "If _I_ had punched Joey in the face, I wouldn't have heard the end of it from you. It would have been 'I can take care of myself, Al,' this and 'Stop meddling in my life, Al,' that. Why the special treatment for Scorpius?"

She rolled her eyes but was also smiling. "Maybe because Scorpius doesn't make a habit of meddling in my life, so on the rare occasions that he does, I know it's important?"

I didn't argue the point. I knew I wouldn't win. Let's just say I had developed a bit of a reputation in the few years I'd been at school. I called it being helpful. Rose called it being meddlesome. When it was other people I was helping, she'd just roll her eyes and sigh. But when it was her life I "interfered with" – her words, not mine. Remember: I was fixing things! – she tended to get a little more testy.

So, yeah. I didn't argue the point. Instead, I changed the subject.

"What exactly was Towler's reason for cheating on you?" I asked. I wanted to know what had caused Scorpius to say he was proud of her.

She rolled her eyes, but at her ex-boyfriend, not at me. "He was pressuring me," she said with disdain and impatience.

"To do what?" I asked. And in hindsight, yes, I should have known, but equating Rose with sex was so far from being a natural inclination that it honestly didn't occur to me until she gave me one of those looks, and then I got it. And felt like a idiot. "Right. What every fifteen-year-old boy pressures his girlfriend to do. Got it."

"And I said no, because, ew." She made a face of disgust. "Let Joey Towler be my first? Please. Anyway, once he got it through his thick skull that I wasn't going to put out for him, he went and found himself a slag who would."

She gave a cheery smile at the end of that, prompting me to observe, "You don't seem terribly broken up over this."

"I'm not," she said with a sigh. "The fact is, Scorpius is right. Joey Towler _is_ a tosser, and I should have ditched him long ago. This just gave me another reason."

"Why _did_ you go out with him in the first place?" I asked then, echoing Scorpius's earlier question. And then, as was my wont, I said too much. "I mean, Scorpius and I didn't keep the unwashed masses of the school from you for six months just to have you go out with _Joey Towler_."

"You _what_?" she demanded, and only then did I realize my mistake. "Albus Severus Potter, I _knew_ it! You are absolutely infuriating!"

"It wasn't just me!" I said in my defense. "Scorpius did it, too!"

"Yeah, but whose idea was it?" she demanded.

"Well, mine, but–"

"God, you two are worse than a pack of overprotective brothers!" she said, crossing her arms and glaring at me.

"You don't have any overprotective brothers," I pointed out, which she clearly didn't care for.

"No, but your mother has told me enough! Look, Al, can we just –" She sighed and rubbed at her eyes. "My love life is off limits from now on, please?"

"Rose, I really think you're–"

"Al!"

"Fine, fine, love life, off limits, I promise, whatever," I said impatiently, waving my hand. Spoiler warning: I didn't keep that promise. "The point is, don't you wish we'd been a little more successful and kept Towler from asking you out at all?"

"No, I don't!" she said defiantly, and it was my turn to give her a look. But she just raised her chin another inch and said, "I mean it, Al! You and Scorpius can't be my bodyguards forever. I have to deal with these people on my own. You two are worse than Dad."

That stung, because my uncle Ron is the definition of overprotective father. "Hey now," I countered. "That's only because he isn't here. And at least we were covert about it. I mean, you didn't even know it was going on until I said something, did you?"

"No," she conceded. "You were surprisingly subtle this time."

"Thank you," I said with decorum, then realized what she'd done. "Hey!" She grinned.

"Shove off," she said with a good natured smile. "I have to finish this essay and you're a distraction."

That night in the dorm, Scorpius was trying to manage getting ready for bed essentially one handed, with the last three fingers of his right hand splinted together. Madame Pomfrey had a policy: injury from accident or attack would be Healed completely, but injury from personal stupidity would be left to heal naturally, in the hopes that the pain would knock some more sense into you.

"How's the hand?" I asked with maybe the tiniest smirk.

"Hurts like a bitch," he replied, but then he smiled. "Worth it, though."

"What's your punishment?"

"Oh, re-alphabetizing part of the library. When I told Flitwick why I'd done it, he was pretty lenient. Madame Pomfrey, too. After I told her the story, she rebroke Joey's nose."

"She _what_?" I asked in gleeful disbelief.

"She'd already started Healing it, so she reversed her spells," he clarified. "And the look on his face was absolutely worth it. So, yeah," Scorpius said. "Not a bad day, all things considered."

I watched him for a few moments. He was rifling through some papers on his desk with his good hand, his back mostly to me. None of our dormmates were in the room, so I decided it was safe to bring up what had the potential to be a sensitive subject. "Scorpius, can I ask you a strange question?"

He gave me a weird look, but laughed a little and said, "Sure."

"Do you have a thing for Rose?"

"What?" he asked with another little laugh, his voice lined with genuine bewilderment. "No."

I considered his body language and tone for a moment. I'd gotten to the point where I could spot a lie fairly well, especially from Scorpius or Rose. There was no awkwardness, no blush, no attempt at deflection. He sounded as if he'd never even considered such a ludicrous thing. In short, I believed him.

"All right," I said, and rolled over.

"Wait."

When I looked back over my shoulder, Scorpius was peering at me shrewdly and a bit suspiciously. "You never let go of things this easily," he said. "What's up?"

"Nothing," I said, but he clearly didn't believe me, so I said again, "Nothing! Normally when I badger you about something, it's because I'm trying to get you to confirm what I already know to be true. This time, though, I asked out of genuine curiosity. And you answered genuinely. So, yeah. That's that."

He eyed me suspiciously for another long moment. "Can I ask what made you wonder?" he finally said. I shrugged.

"You punched Joey Towler in the face because he cheated on her."

"No, I _confronted_ Joey Towler because he cheated on her," Scorpius corrected. "I punched him in the face because of what he then said about her. And trust me, if you'd been there, you would have punched him, too."

"Don't tell me," I advised, "or I still might."

"But anyway, I didn't confront him with the objective of punching him. I just had to know – how do you cheat on Rose?" The question was genuine and tinged with incredulity, and I echoed it. "When Rose Weasley, who is brilliant, witty, funny, and socially at ease, to say nothing of the fact that she's _gorgeous_ – when Rose Weasley, of all people, agrees to go out with you, how do you cheat on her? How do you not consider yourself the luckiest bloke in the world? That's what I wanted to know."

Though he'd said nothing that he hadn't said the night before, and though he'd said nothing _I_ hadn't also said, that time, something made me sit up a little straighter. I couldn't identify it, but something was different about those words that night, and even after we'd turned in for the night, that _something_ kept me up, my mind turning and considering and wondering. And slowly, it came to me.

Scorpius didn't have feelings for Rose. I fully believed that. But as I lay there awake, thinking about it, I discovered how natural it was to add one word to the end of that statement.

Scorpius didn't have feelings for Rose. _Yet_.

I did not begin matchmaking these two at the age of eleven. I began matchmaking them at the age of fifteen.

Now, before you give me that look and call me a horrible human being, let me explain something. As I lay awake that night and thought about this and thought about this and thought about this, it became clear to me that Rose and Scorpius were pretty much perfect for each other. Everything that most people claim to want in a romantic partner, Rose and Scorpius had with each other. They were already best friends, and as close as any best friends ever had been. They could talk to each other on any subject, whether or not they held the same opinion. They could also share a comfortable silence, and they had been known to both finish each other's sentences and not bother to finish sentences at all. They trusted each other unswervingly and entirely, and could be open and vulnerable with each other in a way that I just couldn't see either one of them being with anyone else. Scorpius especially had trust issues – understandably – and he'd already placed his complete and utter trust with two people, Rose and myself. I really couldn't picture him adding a third.

And, though this was the most selfish reason on my list, Rose and Scorpius falling in love with each other wouldn't change the group dynamic the way trying to add another person would. The best thing about our friendship was that it existed in four different facets. There was the friendship that the three of us collectively shared, but Rose and I also had a friendship that was separate from Scorpius, and Scorpius and I had a friendship that was separate from Rose, and Rose and Scorpius had a friendship that was separate from me. It was perfectly balanced, in other words, and if the two of them started dating, it would still be perfectly balanced. But we'd seen when Rose had dated Towler that adding an outside person tilted the scales just enough to throw everything off, something I wanted to avoid.

But that was honestly a secondary consideration. First and foremost in my mind was the fact that Rose and Scorpius completed each other in a way that was absolutely and entirely _right_. They didn't see it, not yet, but I did, and from the moment it became clear to me, I knew that Rose and Scorpius would be amazing together.

I want to take a minute and clarify that I do not believe in soulmates, or at least, I don't believe exclusively in soulmates. I don't believe that there is one right person for everyone, and I know that falling in love is as much a matter of circumstance as anything else. But once I saw how perfectly Rose and Scorpius fit each other, I became determined to make their circumstance as conducive to romance as possible.

A little more than halfway through our fourth year, I started to develop a reputation for forgetfulness, brought on by the number of times the three of us would be halfway to the Great Hall or the library or the grounds when I suddenly remembered a book or an assignment that I had forgotten somewhere, and urged Scorpius and Rose to go ahead without me. I also developed a reputation for enhanced scholarship from all the times I stayed behind in class to talk with a professor, again urging Scorpius and Rose to go ahead without me.

I was careful not to do these things often enough to bring any undue attention to them nor to myself. I was patient, methodical, deliberate. The plan was simple: get them used to spending more time alone with one another without me in the way, then bam! Hit them with a two-month separation over the summer holidays and count on absence to make the heart grow fonder.

And the plan worked like a dream, too. Right up until the last bit, the summer holidays bit. Because, as I discovered, the best laid plans of mice and men get shot completely to hell when your cousin, who is supposed to be developing feelings for your best friend, starts dating Liam Jordan halfway through the summer, and your best friend, who is supposed to be pining away for your cousin, is completely okay with it.

Liam Jordan was the son of Lee Jordan, my Uncle George's old friend and business partner, and Liam and Rose had become friends while both working in Uncle George's shop, so really, you could say it was all his fault.

I couldn't understand how it had happened. I mean, Rose told me about it, and I legitimately could not, for a moment or two, process the words she was saying. Dating Liam Jordan? It was an impossibility. It wasn't in my plan.

Don't get me wrong. Liam was a perfectly decent guy, as those things go. He was no Joey Towler, certainly. But he was two years above us in school, and in Gryffindor, and more James's friend than ours. Not to mention the fact that he was . . . well . . . boring is really the only way to put it. He was boring. Nice enough, and respectful, but entirely unmotivated and actually a little lazy. And certainly not as good a fit for Rose as Scorpius was.

But there was nothing I could do. To say I didn't like him would make Rose wonder why, and I didn't have a reason beyond that I thought she should be with Scorpius, which I could hardly admit. So I had to keep my mouth shut and act happy for her and just wait it out, because I knew it wouldn't turn into anything. There was nowhere for the relationship to go.

And the worst part about all of it? When I contacted Scorpius over our two-way mirrors and angrily proclaimed, "Rose is dating Liam Jordan!" expecting that he would respond with equal ire, all I got was a distracted and nonchalant, "Yeah, she told me yesterday." And that was it.

I kept expecting him to say more, but no. That was all I got. So I prompted, "You don't have a problem with this?" He frowned in puzzlement.

"Should I?" he asked. I almost tore my hair in frustration and had to keep myself from yelling, _Yes!_ It was like I'd done nothing at all our last two months at school.

But I didn't lose hope entirely because at the end of the summer when our Hogwarts letters came, we learned that Rose and Scorpius had been named Prefects for Ravenclaw House. Rose, of course, surprised no one, but Scorpius raised some eyebrows. I knew the decision would ultimately come down to him and Tony Boot, and it could have gone either way. Personally, I had no chance in hell of getting the badge, and wouldn't have accepted it if I had. I had no desire whatsoever to be Prefect. Scorpius was far better suited, and he and Rose being named meant they'd be spending that much more time together, and without Liam Jordan to boot, because _he_ sure wasn't a Prefect.

So all hope was not lost, but I had been set back considerably, and it was time to up the ante. It was time to get Scorpius on my side.

I hope I don't need to tell you that the task was a lot harder than that statement makes it sound. And I'll spare you the details because it turns out I didn't do it very well. Which isn't an easy thing for me to admit, by the way, so you should take that into account.

But anyway, I thought I was subtly planting doubts into Scorpius's mind about the wisdom of letting Rose date someone so much older and so different from herself, but after about a fortnight of this, Scorpius suddenly set his book aside and gave me a shrewd and probing look.

"Okay," he said. "That's the fifth time in two weeks that you've made some sort of comment insinuating that I shouldn't be okay with Rose's relationship. What's going on, Al?" I sputtered something about not knowing what he was talking about, but he'd caught me off guard, so I wasn't at my most convincing, and he knew it. He just arched an eyebrow and asked, "What do you have against Liam, anyway?"

"Nothing," I said, trying to keep my voice calm and even. "I just don't think he and Rose are well suited. And I have trouble believing that you don't think the same thing." He laughed at that. Outright laughed. The conversation was not going in the direction I'd hoped.

"Really?" he asked. "Why on earth would I have a problem with Liam dating Rose? He's respectful, courteous, gentlemanly, and he makes Rose happy."

"He's older than she is."

"By fifteen months, Al. He's not exactly robbing the cradle."

"But they have nothing in common!" I insisted, but he just shrugged.

"Ever heard the saying 'opposites attract'?" And he turned to go back to his work.

"You are utterly infuriating!" I growled.

"Why do you care so much?" he asked, bemused, but then in the next instant, his face had frozen in comprehension. I actually watched him put two and two together, and I knew I was in for it. Slowly, his eyes narrowed, and he shifted into _that_ look. You know the one. "Al,"he said, and I tried to look innocent, an effort doomed to failure. "This wouldn't have anything to do with that question you asked me after Rose and Towler broke up, would it?" I tried to form a denial, but, embarrassingly, I only squeaked vaguely. "Damn it, Al, I knew you couldn't just let it go," he said with a sigh, burying his face in his hands momentarily before pressing them together against his mouth as he composed his thoughts. "Al, listen to me, I beg of you. I do not have feelings for Rose. Nor do I see myself developing them at any point in the future. So please, for the love of Rowena Ravenclaw, take off your matchmaker hat and put it away."

"But—!"

"Al, do you remember the promise you made to Rose?" he interrupted. "Not to meddle in her love life? Do you remember?"

"Yes," I said sullenly, glowering at him.

"And are you keeping that promise?"

"Yes," I said defiantly, and when he gave me another look, I straightened and insisted, "I am! I am not meddling in her love life. I'm not trying to sabotage them, I'm not attempting to break them up, I'm just—"

"Meddling in _my_ love life instead." Okay, so Scorpius knew me too well. "Make me the same promise," he said, and I cursed. "My love life is as off limits as Rose's. Deal?"

I grumbled something incoherent, but he just looked at me, expectant, until I said, "Fine, I promise," slumping back in my seat.

Yeah, I didn't keep that one either.

You have to understand my position in this. Everyone has those two friends who are without a doubt going to get together eventually. Don't deny it – you have them. And you probably knew it before they did, right? Because everyone does. The couple in question is always the last to figure it out. In my mind, I was just trying to help Rose and Scorpius and speed up the process. Should I have stayed out of it? Yeah, probably. But I was 15 years old and drunk on power. I'd been a successful matchmaker five times at this point, and I was convinced that if I used my powers on my best friends, who I knew better than any of the others, I couldn't possibly go wrong.

But Scorpius refused to go along. And Rose would have taken my head off if she'd known what I was up to. And then fifth year started in earnest, and I was so busy keeping up with my classes and prepping for OWLs that I didn't have much time to think about really anything else. It didn't help that Scorpius was keeping me under close watch, like he didn't trust me or something. Hard to believe, I know.

Fast forward to just before Christmas, fifth year. At three days til the end of term, a notice is posted in the Common Room that sends all the fifth years into a nervous panic. It's the reminder that Career Advice meetings will begin the second week of January. Your future will be decided in three short weeks. Have a nice Christmas.

When my dad went to school, career advice meetings were held long about April because back then, NEWT class placement was determined solely by OWL scores. But by the time I had gotten to school, that had changed. NEWT class placement was not determined by a combination of OWL scores and class grades. It ensured that a good student wasn't kept out of a class simply because he or she had a bad day and bombed the OWL, and it likewise ensured that a poor student couldn't just cram for one exam and be admitted to a class above his skill level. All in all, it was a reform I supported. But it also meant that fifth years had to start thinking about the future quite a bit sooner. Personally, that was no problem. I knew what I was doing with my future. But Rose and many others? Didn't have a clue. So there was a bit of freaking out going on.

I came back from Muggle Studies the day before term ended to find Rose sitting on the floor in the Common Room, surrounded by pamphlets, and wearing a look of overwhelmed panic. It looked like she'd been there for a while, so I did the best thing I could think of: I sat down next to her and gently pried the pamphlets from her hands.

"Rose," I said softly. "You're going to drive yourself crazy."

"I have to figure this out," she said in a soft and borderline hysterical voice. "Before the meeting."

"I think that's actually the point of the meeting," I said. "Figuring this out. Professor Flitwick isn't expecting everyone to have their life perfectly tracked out. That's what he's there for." But she shook her head vehemently.

"You don't understand," she said, finally looking at me. "You already know exactly what you want to do with your life; you've known since you were twelve. You're going to go in there and say, 'I want to be a Healer,' and Professor Flitwick is going to say, 'Tell me something I don't know.' You have it all figured out. I don't. I have no idea what I want to do with my life. But I'm fifteen years old and everyone's looking to me for an answer. James is going to play professional Quidditch, and everyone nods and smiles and checks his future greatness off their list. You're going to be a Healer, a little less flashy, they'll say, but fitting for the son of the great Harry Potter. And then they all turn to me, expectantly, saying, 'And you, Miss Weasley? What grand and glorious thing will you accomplish with your life?' And I don't have an answer for them. And so the world is disappointed in me."

I'd never heard her speak so bitterly, and it shocked me. "Rose," I said, her name a gentle reprimand. "Is that really what you think?"

She gave a half shrug and said, "No. Yes. I don't know," and sounded absolutely miserable.

"Come here," I said, putting an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into my embrace. "You're going to figure it out, Rose," I said softly. "Figuring things out is one of the many, many things that you are good at. You will figure out which of those many, many strengths you want to spend the rest of your life doing, but as you make that decision, remember one very important thing. Your job is not to make the rest of the world happy. You shouldn't choose your career in an attempt to fulfill the ridiculous expectations of people who know nothing more about you than your parentage and your name. For one thing, you'll never succeed. For another, it's _your_ life. Do what makes you happy. Don't let anything else factor in."

We sat in comfortable silence for a long time, my arm around her shoulder. Then she spoke. "Did you know," she said, "that in many Muggle societies, you can practically be a student forever? If you have the money or don't mind racking up the debt, you can just keep going to school and getting degree after degree after degree. You can never stop learning. That idea appeals to be."

"Well, there's your answer, then!" I said emphatically, not bothering to ask how she knew that. Rose collected facts about other cultures the way some people collect Chocolate Frog cards.

"What, be a professional student?" she asked, an eyebrow raised.

"No, be a professional Muggle," I said, and she was actually startled into laughter. "I'm serious!" I said with a grin. "When Professor Flitwick asks what you want to do with your life, you should tell him that you're going to go off to – to Ox-whatever or Cam-something –"

"Oxford and Cambridge?" she supplied sardonically.

"Yes, those," I said, "and live as a Muggle until you've learned everything there is to learn about the Muggle world."

"You are ridiculous," she said, but she was still laughing.

"Yeah," I agreed, "but I got you to laugh, so I'll take the trade off."

She bumped me with her shoulder and said, "Thanks, Al."

"So it's decided then," I said, prompting her to roll her eyes.

"What's decided?" Scorpius asked, just coming into the Common Room.

"Rose is going to be a Muggle when she grows up," I informed him.

"Interesting," he said. "I didn't know you could get paid for that."

"Well, we're working on that, but I have no doubt as to our success."

"Oh, of course not," he agreed readily.

"You two are impossible," Rose informed the pair of us.

"No argument here," I said with a grin. "And you, Mr. Malfoy? Have you figured out your life's calling adequately?"

"Actually," he said, a hint of nervousness creeping into his voice, "I've been giving that a lot of thought."

"And?" Rose prompted, all teasing gone.

"And . . ." He took a deep breath, as if steeling himself. "I think I'd like to teach."

"Defense?" I asked, and he nodded.

"What do you think?" he asked hesitantly, seeking our approval. Rose and I looked at each other, then a slow smile spread across my face.

"I think . . . it's brilliant," I told him, because I did. Though it wasn't a future I'd ever envisioned for him, it was one that made an awful lot of sense. I said before that Scorpius took to Defense Against the Dark Arts like he was born to do it, and he was also a natural teacher. He had a real knack for making things easy to understand. Once he'd spoken the ambition, I couldn't see how I _hadn't_ seen it before. Rose agreed wholeheartedly. Scorpius smiled, almost managing to look reassured, but there was the slightest shadow on his face when he turned away, which both Rose and I noticed immediately, though she beat me to mentioning it.

"Okay, what's that look?" she asked, and Scorpius looked guilty.

"What look?" he tried to ask.

"Nuh uh," I said, standing at the same time as Rose, and together we steered him into a seat. "We both saw it, so spill. Why the lingering hesitation?"

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, all pretense dropped. "The last time we saw Grandfather Lucius, I overheard him laying into Father about how he was raising me. He said, 'If you don't start paying a bit more honor to the traditions of your ancestors, that pansy of a son of yours is going to grow up to be some underling researcher, or worse, a teacher. He's a Malfoy, damn it! When are you going to start teaching him to act like it?'"

I may not have mentioned this, but Scorpius's grandfather is quite a piece of work. I've never met the man, and I don't care to, not in the least because it would probably end with me breaking my Healer's oath to 'do no harm.'

"What did your dad say?" Rose asked, and Scorpius gave a half-hearted shrug.

"I don't know. Mum pulled me away before I could hear anymore. But Father became more distant than ever afterwards. And when I boarded the train, he told me to remember always that I was a Malfoy. So how am I supposed to go home and tell him I want to be a teacher?" He sounded more despondent than I'd ever heard him, but before I could even think of anything to say, Rose had seated herself beside him and taken his hand in hers.

"Scorp," she said – and Rose is the only person who is _ever_ allowed to call him Scorp, and she reserves it for those moments when she truly wants to have his full attention – "Listen to me." When he met her gaze and she knew she had his attention, she continued, "Your grandfather isn't worth the time of day. I think there's a reason you haven't seen him since that conversation. As for your father . . . your life cannot be about winning his approval."

"But it is," Scorpius whispered softly. "I can't help it."

"Maybe not," Rose conceded, just as softly. "But it's your life, Scorpius. Not his. You have to do what _you_ feel to be most worthwhile. You have to find what _you_ want."

"I know what I want," he said. "I'm just afraid that once he starts questioning me, I'll break down. I never know how to stand up to him. He makes me feel uncertain and out of place every time we have a conversation."

"Then we'll help you," Rose said, laying her other hand over his. "Al and I. We'll ask any question we can think of, anything we think he might come at you with. If this is what you want, Scorpius, then we are committed to helping you get it."

He smiled at her, a real, unshadowed smile, and she returned it, and . . . it's cheesy to say that the air sort of lit up around them, but that's what it did. Also, they were entirely oblivious to my presence.

I cleared my throat to break their moment, and watched them jump apart, blushing ever so slightly. _Interesting,_ I thought with a smile. To them, I said, "Even though she decided she could speak for me, she's right. We'll help in any way we can."

You know that old saying about how the things you work hardest for come to pass once you stop trying? Maybe not, because I'm not sure such a saying exists, but if it doesn't, it should. Because that's exactly what happened.

Rose and I spent the last few days of term peppering and pestering and launching every challenge we could think of, no matter how underhanded, until Scorpius could answer any and all of them with confidence and reason. And under these circumstances, we headed home for the holidays.

I resolved to give Scorpius a few days to work things out with his parents before I checked in on him, but as it turns out, he was the one to contact me, though neither the timing nor subject of his message was what I was expecting. I was awakened at two in the morning by the bright glow of an incoming message on my two-way mirror, and the sound of Scorpius saying my name. Groggily, I reached for the mirror, still half asleep.

Scorpius looked terrible, pale and disheveled and panicked.

"Scorpius?" I asked, squinting from the brightness. "Is everything all right?" It wasn't like him to call in the middle of the night.

He shook his head numbly and, in a voice that matched the panic on his face, said, "Al, I think I'm falling in love with Rose."


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter Three  
_

* * *

Al, I think I'm falling in love with Rose.

For months, I'd been waiting to hear those words from Scorpius. _Months_. And then he went and uttered them when I was half asleep and not fully able to process them. Although, that's probably not a bad thing, as I'd likely have found it difficult to suppress my look of glee had I been fully awake. As it was, I could only blink hard a couple times as I tried to finish pulling myself into wakefulness.

"Al, did you hear what I said?" Scorpius asked then, urgently.

"Yeah," I said then, and gave my head one firm shake to clear it. "Yeah. Okay. What brought on the realization?"

"I had a dream," he said, looking thoroughly unhappy. "And when I woke up – gods, it was clear as day! I should have seen it _ages_ ago. I don't know how I missed it."

It was the clear distress in his voice that kept me from pointing out that he'd missed it because he'd been so determined to prove all my observations wrong. That, and I was still not awake enough for witty repartee.

"Al, what am I going to do?"

"Okay," I said again, trying to collect my thoughts. "Here's my advice. And understand, I'm not trying to diminish what you're going through in any way, but it's," I checked my watch, "two sixteen in the morning. I'm not terribly coherent, and I doubt that you're at full capacity, either. There's nothing to be done tonight, and things may look different in the morning. So try and go back to sleep. Then, meet me at Fortescue's tomorrow morning at 10, and we'll talk, okay?"

He closed his eyes, and while I knew it wasn't the answer he wanted to hear, I also knew he'd see the sense in it. And he did. "Okay," he said finally.

"Okay?" I repeated. "It's all gonna work out, Scorpius. I promise." He nodded.

"Yeah, okay."

"I'll see you tomorrow," I said. "Try to calm down, okay?" He nodded again.

"Okay," he said. "Thanks, Al."

"Any time," I told him, and then the mirror went dark. I set it back down on the table and settled back into bed, but with a smile that I couldn't quite contain. Though I'd had little enough to do with it, the thought that accompanied me back to sleep was, _Finally, things are going according to plan._

When I arrived at Fortescue's the next day, Scorpius was already there, looking just as agitated as he had the night before. He was pale and fidgety, the fingers on his right hand tapping constantly against the tabletop. When he saw me, he straightened and pointed a finger in my direction.

"I don't want to hear one word, Al, not one word from you about –"

"Scorpius," I interrupted, sliding into the seat across from him. "You are upset. You've had a shock, you are grappling with some pretty enormous and overwhelming things. Do you really think I am going to take this opportunity to say 'I told you so?'" I had been thinking it, sure, but I was not so callous nor so heartless as to rub it in his face, and I was a bit hurt that he'd thought I would. But at the question, he looked properly chastened.

"No. I'm sorry, Al."

"I'm saving that for your wedding toast."

" _Al–_ "

"Relax. That was a joke." He looked ready to kill me, but it had been worth it, and besides. I was only trying to change the mood. "So, nothing's changed since last night, I take it?"

"No." He looked and sounded positively miserable.

"All right," I said. "So tell me about this dream."

It was pretty standard, as far as dreams went, and pretty obvious to me why he'd dreamed it. I'll never claim to be an expert on Divination, but it seems logical to me that whatever you're worrying over in real life will carry over to your dreams at night, so it made perfect sense that in his dream, Scorpius was asked to choose between two doors, one leading to the life his family expected him to live, and one leading to the life he wanted to live. There was a bunch of other random stuff in the dream, too, but that's really what it boiled down to.

"I picked the green door," Scorpius said, "but as soon as I had started to open it, Rose ran out of the blue door, in a wedding gown, looking at me like I had betrayed her. She said, 'You were supposed to trust your heart,' and I couldn't get her to hear that I hadn't known she was behind that door, and if I had, of _course_ I would have chosen it. And then I woke up, and I _knew_ , Al." He buried his hands in his hair.

"So what are you going to do?" I asked him. "Tell her?"

"How can I tell her?" he demanded. "She's dating someone else!"

I dismissed this concern with a wave of my hand. "Yeah, but they're not going to last," I told him.

"You've been saying that for all four months of their relationship," Scorpius pointed out.

"Four months isn't that long in the scheme of things. She dated _Towler_ for four months."

He glared at me. "You're not helping."

"Hey, you're the one who came to me for advice," I pointed out. "I'm just trying to help you put things into perspective."

"Well, lay off perspective and offer some more in the way of advice, O Sage One." I love it when he mocks me. "What should I do?"

"Honestly?" I said. "You should tell her. You should tell her how you feel at the soonest opportunity." He stared at me.

"How exactly am I supposed to do that?" he demanded.

"Well, I'm no Cyrano de Bergerac, nor do I particularly relish the idea of helping anyone write declarations of love to my cousin, but I think something along the lines of "Rose, I'm in love with you," should do—"

"Damn it, Al!" Scorpius yelled then, hitting the table in frustration. "I'm serious!"

"So am I," I told him, leaning across the table, all jesting gone (because, yeah, I'd been having a little fun up til then). "I think that, as your feelings are entirely independent of whether or not she's dating someone, so should your decision to divulge them be."

"Your logic is entirely warped," he told me then, and I shrugged.

"Yeah, but only by society's standards." He glared at me then, but it wasn't terribly effective, as he'd been glaring at me for the past five minutes or so. "You're really not going to tell her?" I asked, and he sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"Look," he said heavily. "She's happy. With Jordan, she's happy. I don't have the right to take that away from her, do I?"

"Don't ask me that question seriously," I told him, "because you know what my answer will be."

"Al–"

"Scorpius, you fit her better than Jordan ever could! As happy as she is with him, she'd be ten times happier with you!"

"That's not my decision to make," he insisted. "And anyway, I don't want to mess up what we have!"

"Friendship," I said flatly. "That's what you have. And don't get me wrong, it's a close and beautiful friendship, and I understand why you don't want to mess it up, but that's the chance you have to take if you really want more! Friends are honest with each other, and that means you should be honest about how you feel because to hold something like this back from her comes awfully close to lying. What's the worst she can do, say no? Reject you? You really think your friendship isn't strong enough to recover from that?"

He looked troubled and pensive, almost uncomfortable. "Look," he said finally, "I would, if she wasn't with someone else, but—"

"There are a million reasons not to tell her," I interrupted. "You can come up with them all day, but the real question it all boils down to is, what's more important to you? The friendship? Or the potential for something more? If you choose the friendship, fine. But you can't pine over her anymore, if you do, and if you do, you've got to figure out how to keep Rose from noticing the fact that you feel more because she's pretty smart and she'll figure it out if you don't. _And_ ," I said emphatically, cutting him off when he opened his mouth to interrupt, "you'd better figure it out fast."

Nothing if not shrewd, his eyes narrowed. "I've got two weeks to figure it out," he said, which is when I chose to enlighten him with the unfortunate truth.

"Actually, you've got about five minutes," I said. "Because Rose is headed here as we speak."

Looking at Scorpius, you wouldn't think it possible for him to grow any paler than he is naturally, but somehow, when truly shocked, he manages it. "Five – you _invited_ her here?" he sputtered, hissing out the last in an accusatory way that was a little hurtful.

"Of course not," I said, giving him a derisive look I learned from Rose. "She and I already had plans. You were in the middle of a crisis; was I supposed to pencil you in for a time when it was more convenient? And given the nature of said crisis, I couldn't exactly contact Rose and say, 'I'm sorry, but Scorpius just realized he's in love with you, so can we push back our plans so I can deal with that?'"

"You could have given me a little more warning!"

"Yeah, but this way was more fun," I said with a winning smile. Scorpius looked like he wanted to kill me.

"Al, I swear to God—"

"Ah, look, Rose is early." This was true; she'd just walked through the door of Fortescue's. I waved her over to the table.

Scorpius plastered a smile on his face as she approached, but at me, he growled, "You're going to pay for this."

"I'm sure I will," I said in the same manner, and then Rose had reached us. "Rose!" I said with a smile.

"Hey, Al. And – oh, hi, Scoripus," she said in pleased surprise.

"Hi!" he said, too brightly, too loudly, and far too enthusiastic. Rose gave him a look of amused bewilderment, which was kind, given that my look was more along the lines of, _Pull yourself together, man!_

"Hi," she said again with a little laugh, and then turned to me. Free from her gaze, Scorpius closed his eyes in embarrassed pain. "Look, Al, I need a favor, and I know you're going to hate me for this, but—"

"Are you about to call off our shopping expedition?" I asked, cutting her off. I recognized that look in her eye. She looked chagrined.

"Yes," she admitted with a sigh.

" _Our_ shopping expedition," I said again, layering on the act a little thick to give Scorpius adequate time to compose himself. "The shopping expedition we go on every year on this very date to buy all our last minute Christmas gifts. Our Annual Tradition. You're here to call that off."

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. "Yes," she said again. "Liam leaves for France tomorrow and he's not back til the New Year. He wanted to spend the day together and do gifts, and I thought you and I could reschedule."

"Our Annual Shopping Expedition, tradition well established for well nigh four years, forsaking family in favor of your latest—"

"Yes, I get it!" she said with a laugh, shoving me. "So is it cool?"

"Yeah, whatever," I said with a dismissive wave of my hand and a grin. "I mean, it's cool with me, but Scorpius might be heartbroken."

"Please, Scorpius?" Rose said, playing along, kneeling beside him with her hands clasped under her chin. "I swear I'll make it up to you." She stuck out her lower lip for good measure. I think I was the only one to notice the larger-than-normal swallow before Scorpius answered.

"Hey, you see us practically every hour of every day, right?" he said. "Go spend time with your boyfriend."

"You're the best," she told him, giving him a kiss on the cheek. He colored brightly, and I knew Rose would notice, so I cleared my throat loudly and gave her an expectant look. "You too, of course, Al," she said.

"Thank you for the afterthought, it's greatly appreciated," I said wryly. She grinned, standing and brushing off her knees.

"I'll see you both soon!" And with a wave, she headed out of the restaurant. Scorpius slumped against the back of the booth.

"You're welcome," I told him. He glared at me.

"It wouldn't have been necessary if you'd just—"

"I'm sorry, was that a, 'Thank you, Al, for being such a considerate and helpful friend'?" He sighed.

"Yes," he said sullenly.

"All seriousness," I said then, "you have to figure out how you're handling this." He let out a shaky breath.

"I can't do anything while she's dating Jordan," he finally said, and while it wasn't exactly the answer I wanted to hear, I reminded myself that two days ago, we hadn't even been this far along. Baby steps.

"Okay," I said, and he raised an eyebrow.

"Okay?" he repeated, and I nodded.

"Absolutely. That's your choice, and I will respect it."

"Somehow I doubt that," he muttered.

But I did respect it. Other than the occasional offhand comment in the months that followed, I didn't pester Scorpius at all about his decisions regarding Rose. Truth be told, I was hoping that having to sleep in the bed he'd made would be far more convincing than anything I had to say. And I was pretty much right.

Scorpius did a decent job of acting as if everything was normal. Rose didn't notice anything, certainly, which speaks to how well he did. But when she had walked away and he was watching her go, usually to spend time with her boyfriend, that was when the mask slipped. Wanting to be with her was eating away at him, and finally, on a Hogsmeade visit in April that we spent together by ourselves because Rose was with Jordan – at Scorpius's insistence, I add with an eye roll – he couldn't hold it in any longer.

"Eight months." Scorpius was looking at me accusingly over the table at The Three Broomsticks. "Eight months, Al!"

"Eight months," I repeated, sipping my butterbeer, looking past him. I had positioned us very carefully and specifically so that I could monitor Rose's "date" with Liam Jordan, as I did most every Hogsmeade visit.

"When they'd been dating for four months, you told me not to worry. When they'd been dating for four months, you told me it wasn't that long, and that the relationship would end any day."

"I don't think that's actually what I said," I tried to argue, but he rolled right over my protest.

"And now it's been eight months!" he exploded, though quietly, as we were in the middle of a pub full of our peers. "Eight, Al! Which is twice as many as four!"

"Good to see that five years of Transfiguration and Charms haven't hindered your ability to do maths," I said casually.

"Al!"

"What do you want me to do about it, Scorpius?" I asked then. "I'm not the one keeping you silent, that's your own damn sense of morality," I reminded him. "I've said you should tell her how you feel regardless."

"And I've told you that I am not going to tell Rose that I—" He glanced around warily and lowered his voice — "have feelings for her, while she's dating someone else. What kind of person does that?"

"Someone who wants to turn the situation to his best advantage?" I asked. His eyes narrowed.

"That's Al the Cold and Calculating Ravenclaw coming through," he told me dispassionately. I shrugged.

"Maybe," I conceded. "And yet . . ."

I have, many times, in many different conversations, let my sentences trail off unfinished for purposes of added emphasis. This was not one of those times. This time, I had left my sentence unfinished because something across the room had caught my eye, something that filled me with a stony dread. Scorpius didn't know that, though.

"And yet, what, Al?" he was demanding. I held up a hand to stop him, my eyes never leaving the scene across the room. "Al!"

"Jordan's breaking up with Rose," I said softly, but Scorpius just rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, so you've been saying the past four months!"

"No," I said, meeting his eye this time. "I mean, right now, as we speak. Jordan's breaking up with Rose." And I jerked my head toward the scene unfolding across the pub. Turning, he saw what I saw. And what I saw was this:

Rose had returned from the restroom and headed for the table where she'd been sitting with Jordan and his friends. But rather than let her sit back down, Jordan, looking more nervous and awkward than I'd ever seen him, stood to meet her and gestured back the way she'd come, which I interpreted as, _Can I talk to you alone for a minute?_

Looking bemused, Rose agreed, and she led him back to the start of the hall, one of the more secluded areas of the pub, but by no means really private. And that's when Jordan started talking.

He was too far away for us to hear what he was saying, and I've never learned to read lips, but his posture made things abundantly clear. His shoulders were hunched, and he kept shifting his weight from foot to foot. His hands, when they weren't rubbing anxiously at the back of his neck, were shoved defensively in his front pockets. He was having trouble meeting Rose's eye.

And then, all of a sudden, he reached for her hand, and all but clung to it. His words came more rapidly then, and the look on his face was equal parts earnest and upset, worried and regretful.

And then there was Rose's reaction which was the most telling of all.

She had frozen at his first words, frozen with a bemused smile on her face that had slowly fallen away, replaced by a look I had seen my cousin wear very few times. She was not angry, not stony, but stricken. Upset, but not in the agitated way that he was. Quietly, and trying not to cry. And when he grabbed her hand, she started, not having expected the sudden movement, and the action startled a few tears out of her, which she didn't notice at first, but he did.

 _He_ looked stricken then, as if those tears represented everything he'd been dreading about this encounter. He reached for her face, but stopped halfway there, unsure of the rules in this situation, wanting to comfort her, but knowing he couldn't. And Rose, suddenly aware of what had brought that on, hastily jumped into action, wiping the tears away and trying to smile, trying to laugh, trying to pretend that she was fine. I watched her shake her head with a reassurance that didn't reach her eyes, and I could almost hear her. _No, it's fine. Don't worry about it. I understand. It's okay._ Even though it wasn't.

And then he stepped aside and let her move past him. Without even looking at his friends or at us, she made a straight shot for the door as fast as the law of not being noticeable would allow because she knew, as I did and as Scorpius did, that she couldn't hold it together much longer.

Scorpius and I just looked at one another then. And he said, "Al, I—" And I said, "Go." And he went after her, stopping just once to throw a black look back in Jordan's direction. Jordan didn't miss it. Nor did he miss my look, a calm gaze of expectation and challenge. He accepted the challenge and came over to the table.

"Look," he said, sliding into a vacant chair as I crossed my arms and waited, "I'm telling you this as a courtesy. I don't _have_ to explain myself to you. I'm choosing to, as a gesture."

"Gesture away," I said in my coolest and most collected voice, arms crossed.

"I care about Rose a lot," he said then. "I do. But I am two months away from graduating, and let's face it. Girls like Rose don't settle down with guys like me." I arched my eyebrow at that, and prepared to get good and properly offended, but he waved me down with a hand. "I meant that Rose is way out of _my_ league, Potter. Calm down."

"Well, I can't argue with that," I said, relaxing into my chair.

"I know you can't." He gave me a shrewd look, then sat back in his chair and surveyed me with narrowed eyes. "What's the deal, Potter?" he finally asked. "I know you don't like me, and what's more, I know you never liked that I was dating Rose, so shouldn't you be over the moon? We've broken up; it's what you've wanted for eight months."

"No, it isn't," I said, and when he lifted in his eyebrows in polite but pointed disbelief, I clarified, "I wanted Rose to break up with you."

He laughed at that, one short bark of a laugh, and shook his head. "I'll give you this," he said. "You may be a manipulative bastard, Potter, but at least you're honest."

"Your approval is appreciated," I said dryly.

"That wasn't approval."

"I know. " There was silence for half a moment, then I said, "Just tell me why, Jordan. Why'd you break it off?"

He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "Look," he said, and for the first time since he'd sat down, he looked tired, weary even, and strained, and a rational voice in the back of my head suggested that maybe this had been as hard for him to do as it had been for Rose to hear. I told the voice politely but firmly to shut up.

"I'm going nowhere," Liam said then. "After I graduate, I am getting a flat in London and working the till full time at Wheezes. And in twenty or thirty years, maybe my dad and your uncle will leave part of it to me. Maybe. Or they might leave all of it to Fred. Or have some kind of contest to see who the next owner will be. Thing is, I don't care. I don't care if I never own the store. I don't care if I never 'make something' of myself. I'm going nowhere, and that's how I want it. There's less pressure that way. But Rose? Rose has the potential to fly high and burn bright, and she won't if she stays with me. I'm decidedly earth-bound, and I'll keep her tied here, too, not because I want to. But because she will stay with me in an attempt to remain my equal. And she's not. She's a hell of a lot better. So I broke it off. I'd rather break her heart to some small degree now than destroy a future she's not even aware she has yet."

I sat there, staring at him, floored by his reasoning. And all I could say was, "Huh." His eyebrows raised at that. "Don't tell me I've silenced the great Al Potter. Shocked that I'm more than just some Beater muscles?"

"Shocked because that was my reason for wanting you to break up." He gave a wry smile.

"I'm smarter than I look," he said, getting to his feet.

"You'd almost have to be," I replied, standing as well. He held out his hand to me, and I shook it, refusing to wince when he crushed my fingers harder than was necessary.

"Just explain to Malfoy, would you? I'd appreciate it if he didn't come try and break _my_ nose. I don't want to have to hurt him." I wanted to say I thought Scorpius could take him, but I unfortunately had to believe that Scorpius wouldn't fare well in a confrontation with Jordan. He'd played Beater for five years, after all, and that builds some serious bulk.

I left The Three Broomsticks after that and followed the path Rose and Scorpius had taken back up to Ravenclaw Tower. I found them in the Common Room, Rose in tears, Scorpius with his arms around her, comforting her. After reassuring Rose that no, cross my heart, I hadn't pulled a Scorpius, Jordan and I had only talked, I left them alone.

For the record, no, I did not immediately push Scorpius to reveal his feelings. For one thing, I didn't want him to be a rebound. And for another, well, my conversation with Liam had forced me to acknowledge that as much as I may not have liked it, Rose had genuinely cared about Liam, maybe even loved him, and that would take time to heal. And then OWLs were upon us, and those were really all that any of us had time to think about.

And so fifth year turned into sixth, and things remained much as they ever had. Rose stuck to the vow she'd made after the breakup – to focus on school and eschew all romantic attachments – so it was just the three of us, the way I liked it best. We were closer than ever, despite recent developments, at a time when a lot of other students our age were growing apart from the friends of the first few years at school and forming new attachments. I felt an immense relief as I watched all that, that I wouldn't ever have to worry about such a thing happening to our trio. I couldn't imagine anything shaking us apart.

That's a storytelling cue, by the way. My way of foreshadowing that, eventually, something did manage to shake us apart. But more on that later.

For now, we'll skip ahead to seventh year. Rose was named Head Girl. Exactly zero people were surprised. Scorpius was named Head Boy. Quite a few people were surprised, no one moreso than Scorpius himself. Al's reaction? Glee. Positive glee.

In my head, I'd given Rose a year to get over Jordan and to acclimate to the stress that was NEWT-level classes. As of the start of seventh year, that year was up, and in my mind, the stage was primed for Scorpius to finally make his move. There was no other guy to get in the way. His feelings for her were still as strong as ever. After watching them interact for all of sixth year, I was entirely convinced that Rose was likewise developing feelings for him. And now they were serving as Heads together, which meant even more time spent exclusively in each other's company? Things couldn't have been planned any better.

Except that now that the moment was upon him, Scorpius kept finding reasons to put it off. She'd had a stressful week and he didn't want to add to it. It was Valentine's Day, and he didn't want to be cliched. He was going to say something, but with NEWT-prep and internship application deadlines around the corner, the moment just never felt right. Excuse after excuse after excuse.

And yeah, some of them were valid. We were swamped with a workload we'd never seen the like of before, and all the seventh years were frantically trying to get their futures in order. Rose in particular was stressing like none other because she still hadn't figured out what she wanted to do with her life. I came upon her drowning under internship applications one Saturday night, squeezing in admissions essays between Charms homework.

"Do you even _want_ to be an intern in the International Games and Sports Department?" I asked, picking up a form on the top of the pile.

"No," she said miserably. "But I've got to do _something_ with my life, Al!"

"Rose, how many applications have you sent out?"

"Today? Fourteen."

"I'm not even going to ask how many that makes altogether," I said, sitting next to her and prising her quill out of her hand before she wrote another word on why she would be a top notch Magizoologist. "Rose," I said calmly, "you can't narrow down this decision based on who accepts you into their program. You're the top of your class and Ron and Hermione Weasley's daughter. Everyone's going to accept you. You have to figure out what _you_ want to do."

"But I don't know, Al!" She sounded on the verge of tears.

"When was the last time you ate?" I asked her then, for I knew that state of mind all too well. When she couldn't immediately tell me, I said, "Come with me," and pulled her to her feet and down to the kitchens. She put up a token protest, but not much more than that.

I didn't even bother trying to find Scorpius. He'd spent the week frantically writing and rewriting his own application to the Wizarding Teaching Academy, and while I had no doubt that he, too, could have used a break, he'd shut himself up in some secret room somewhere unknown to me, and the Marauder's Map had been long ago reclaimed from James by Dad. So Rose and I alone went down to the kitchens for some much needed detox (on her end. I'd submitted my application to St. Mungo's at the soonest possible deadline and had long ago been accepted into their program, as long as my NEWT results were up to snuff).

Once we were seated by the fire with fresh smoothies and chocolate eclairs from the House Elves, I asked my cousin, "So, why exactly are you applying to every internship the Ministry offers, even the ones that will turn you away for not having taken the requisite NEWT classes?"

"I guess it makes me feel like I'm at least _trying_ to make a decision," she said quietly.

"Yeah, but you're gonna get stuck liaising with goblins or something, Rose," I pointed out.

"That wouldn't be too bad, actually," she said absently, staring at the wall. "They have some fascinating cultural practices." I laughed and shook my head, because that was such a very Rose-like comment, and the sound seemed to pull her out of her head a bit. "Ivanna Krum wants me to go on a World Tour with her," she admitted then.

"Yeah?" I asked. She nodded.

"She's written me about it a few times now."

"Well, that could be fun, right?" I asked. "Taking a summer to see the world?"

"She doesn't just want to do a summer, though. She's got a full two-year curriculum planned out. Her dad's got contacts all over the world, and money's no issue, so she's making the most of it and traveling outside just Europe. Africa, America, Asia, she's going everywhere. A summer, sure, but two years?" She shook her head. "I just don't think I can leave for that long, you know?"

"So you've said no?" I knew what that had to cost her because it did sound like an amazing opportunity, but she was right. Two years was a really long time, and I knew Rose would get homesick for her Dad and for Scorpius and I. Still, I hated to see her throw away something that would really have been a good fit for her. Imagining Rose traveling the world, collecting even more information on the various Wizarding societies that we really learned very little about, felt somehow very right to me. "Maybe you could join her for the summer at least, but not commit to the full two years?" I suggested.

"Maybe," she said, but she didn't sound sure. "I just don't like not having a plan, and this feels like putting off making a decision even longer, you know?"

"Any more than applying to every department just to see if they'll take you? That's putting off making a decision, too, Rose. But Ivanna's method at least has you seeing the world. Yours'll just give you writer's cramp."

She laughed at that, I thought that maybe I'd relieved at least a bit of the tension. "I'll think about it," she promised. "But I don't see myself leaving for two years."

She didn't mention the World Tour again, and I had a feeling she'd end up saying no, not because she didn't want to, but because I knew my cousin, and for something as big as a World Tour, even three months of planning would be too last minute for her.

The last few weeks of our seventh year flew by impossibly quickly, and then we were in the midst of NEWTs, and the future was staring us in the face. I think it hit all three of us at the same time, the night before the first day of testing. We were all in the Common Room, pouring over notes for three different subjects, but we were tense, restless. A sense of finality had invaded the seventh year class, even though we still had nine days until the end of the year. Someone in Ravenclaw – probably Katy Lawson, who always was morosely sentimental – had posted a countdown board in the Common Room, which didn't help. Finally Rose, of all people, slammed her book shut. Scorpius and I looked up, startled.

"Come on," she said, standing. We continued to stare, and she sighed in agitation. "If we don't know it now, we're not going to, and I've got to get out of here." Scorpius and I shared a look, then a shrug, and we did as she said.

Being best friends with the Heads had its benefits – the fact that we could walk through the corridors and up to the top of one of the towers after curfew without comment was one of them. Once on the parapet, Rose shut the door behind us. Scorpius and I looked at her expectantly, as this had been her idea.

For a moment, she looked as if she was going to make some big speech, try to put into words what our friendship had meant, how she hoped it would continue as strong once school was done, how much it meant to her to have us there in that moment. But in the next instant, she looked down and shook her head and laughed a little, and we laughed too, because we understood and she didn't need to say anything. None of us did. Instead Scorpius and I put our arms around her and we stood at the edge of the parapet, looking out at the moonlit grounds of our school in perfect silence, not needing words at all.

It was a perfect moment, one that promised not an ending but a beginning, and the power of it and the memory of it spurred me to find Scorpius at the end of our first exam the next morning. He was heading for the Common Room just as I was leaving it, so I grabbed him by the arm and steered him to a private corner and said, "You have to tell her," before he could voice any kind of confusion or protest.

I said it differently than I'd been saying it for the past year. There was no exasperation this time or frustration. Just a simple truth. "Things are going to change, Scorpius," I told him simply, "that's what last night was about, things are going to chance, and she's scared of it, and this is your way to control how that change happens. To make it easier. I _know_ she loves you, too, Scorpius, I _know_ it. And this has been part of who you are for the last three years, and so if you don't tell her how you feel before we leave this place, you never will. It will just become part of everything else that gets shut away with your schooldays. So you have to tell her."

Something about what I said got through to him; I watched it happen. And slowly, he nodded, a look of determination in his eye. "You're right," he said softly. "You're right. I have to tell her. I have to do it right now."

I smiled. "Go get her," I said, with a clap on his shoulder, and he took off almost at a run, and I let out a sigh of relief with a huge grin on my face because, _yes_ , now this was going to happen, and once it had, there was only one way for the day to end, and it was the perfect ending to our time at Hogwarts, the transition that bridged the gap.

Except that it didn't happen. I saw Rose less than two hours later, and I asked her if Scorpius had had a chance to talk to her, and she didn't have any idea what I was talking about. And I saw Scorpius later that night, and he was quiet and subdued and wouldn't meet my gaze, and I just _knew_ he'd chickened out of it again. I sighed and sat on the edge of his bed.

"What happened?"I asked quietly, but I couldn't keep it from being the slightest bit accusatory.

He didn't answer for a long time, until finally he said, "She was really distracted, Al. Preoccupied." I bit back my immediate response. I wanted to be understanding, sympathetic, and I did understand how difficult a step this was, I did. So I didn't say what I immediately wanted to.

"Just promise me you'll tell her before the school year's out, okay?" He looked down and nodded.

"I promise," he said, and then he slipped away.

But if he told her, he didn't tell me about it, and neither did she. And then, NEWTs were over, and all our belongings were packed, and we left the Ravenclaw Common Room for the last time. The Farewell Ceremony flew by in a blur, and then we were on a boat on the lake, Rose and Scorpius and I, riding out away from Hogwarts exactly the same way we'd arrived seven years before.

And I do mean _exactly_ the same – a stiff and awkward and preoccupied silence, a far cry from the sense of camaraderie and closeness I'd envisioned in that moment every time I'd thought about it the last year.

I sat alone in a compartment on the train, waiting for Rose and Scorpius to finish their last Prefect meeting, thinking. My thoughts were not pleasant ones.

I think I've demonstrated over the course of this narrative that I'm a pretty bright guy, observant if nothing else, and I knew that something was going on between Rose and Scorpius that I hadn't been let in on. The days since that night on the parapet had been strained and awkward in a way our friendship hadn't been since, well, ever really. Scorpius had been right – Rose _was_ distracted and preoccupied, but he had become just as withdrawn, and there was this _thing_ between them that I didn't understand. I supposed it was possible that Scorpius was just giving her space, and feeling guilty about breaking his promise to me, and that Rose was just tense over the end of school and figuring out her plans for the future, but something told me that these were not the most likely of scenarios.

Not liking where my thoughts were going, I shook my head forcefully, scolding myself for automatically thinking the worse. Rose and Scorpius and I had always been entirely open with one another, recognizing that something happening between two of us had the possibility of affecting all of us. I had no reason to believe that they would suddenly turn secretive and start keeping things from me, and I owed it to them to give them the benefit of the doubt.

So I sat and waited. And waited. And waited. And just when I was starting to think that this meeting was lasting a lot longer than I remembered them lasting, Rose practically ran past the compartment, her face red and her eyes watery.

I was on my feet in a flash, at the compartment door, calling, "Rose!"

She turned, startled, and saw me, and looked for a moment guilty, like I'd caught her at something, but then she said, "Oh, Al. Sorry. I didn't see you."

"Rose, what's wrong?" I asked, guiding her into the compartment.

"Nothing, just . . . the end of the meeting hit me harder than I thought it would." I gathered her to me, just letting her rest against my shoulder.

"Well, where's Scorpius?" I asked. "I'm sure he'll be able to help." I was trying to make her smile, but it didn't work.

"I don't know," she said. "I – haven't seen him since he left the compartment." I frowned. If he'd left the Prefect compartment before Rose, he should have gotten here before Rose, too.

"Well," I said after a moment. "I'm sure he'll be here soon, and we'll ride out together the way we came, hmm?"

But he never came. Rose and I sat alone in that compartment for the entire train ride to London, and Scorpius never showed up. The train pulled into the station, and there was no sign of him. "I can't imagine what happened to Scorpius," I said as Rose and I hauled our trunks off the train.

"Don't worry about it, Al," she said quietly, still subdued. "He probably just got – waylaid by people."

"Still," I said with a frown, craning my neck to look around the platform. "I'm going to make sure I know where he is before I leave."

I expected her to wait with me, so we could at least have our goodbyes together, but she just looked at her watch and said, "Mum and Dad are expecting me. I've got to go. See you in three days?"

"I – yeah, of course," I said, thrown by what felt to me to be an escape. But then she'd hurried off to meet her parents and Hugo.

And _that's_ when Scorpius showed up, looking pale and upset. " _There_ you are!" I called, hurrying over to him. "Where the hell have you been? Rose and I were waiting for you!" There was no small amount of accusation in my voice.

"Sorry," he said in a rough voice. "I – wasn't feeling well after the meeting all of a sudden. I spent most of the trip in the loo."

That cooled some of my irritation. "Sorry, mate," I said, slightly chastised. "That's a rotten way to spend your final ride home. Feeling better now, though?"

"Not really," he said shortly. "Look, Al, I'll call you, okay? I think I just need to get home and lie down." And without really waiting for me to say anything, he Apparated away.

I'd pictured our final goodbye so many times – the train ride spent playing games and telling jokes and reminiscing, the rare three-way hug on the station platform, promises and plans to meet up again soon filling the air between us.

But in reality, I stood by myself, confused and bewildered. And alone. Wondering what the hell had just happened.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

* * *

Much as I wanted to follow both Rose and Scorpius to their houses immediately and demand to know what was going on, I did not. Instead, I forced myself to wait three days.

Three days was a rule Rose and I had come up with a few years before. On each break, but especially summer breaks, we would give each other three days to recover from the end of term before we made plans with one another. Three days to spend with family and recuperate. I waited three days, though they were the most difficult three days I'd ever spent waiting for anything. And on the morning after the third day, as early as was socially acceptable, I Apparated to Rose's.

It was my Aunt Hermione who opened the door. "Al!" she said with a smile. "What a pleasant surprise! We didn't know you were coming." This struck me as slightly odd, as "three days" had been a tradition for at least four years.

"It's three days," I reminded her. "I'm here for Rose." The smile on her face froze for an instant, and then became softer, sadder. I felt the first twinges of foreboding.

"Rose didn't tell you," she said, and it was almost a question, almost but not quite.

"Tell me what?" I asked, distinctly wary now. Aunt Hermione sighed.

"You'd better come in, Al." Yeah, those words didn't bode well.

A few minutes later, when I was set up at the dining room table with a glass of lemonade, and Aunt Hermione was seated across from me, I finally asked, "Where's Rose?"

"She isn't here," Aunt Hermione said gently. "She's in Russia, Al." I stared at my aunt.

"Russia?" I finally got out. I was shocked. I couldn't wrap my head around this. What on _earth_ was Rose doing in _Russia_?

"You know she's friends with Ivanna Krum, yes?" I nodded dumbly. "Well, Ivanna's been planning a World Tour for most of the year now. She's been inviting Rose periodically, but Rose consistently turned her down. But . . . I don't know, Al. I think the end of school hit her harder than she thought it would. So when Ivanna came to make a last ditch attempt the day after Rose came home, she said yes. She spent most of that day packing, and they left for Ivanna's yesterday. It was all very sudden and very fast, and I'm sure that Rose is, as we speak, writing letters to everyone, explaining. I'll be very surprised if you don't hear from her by the end of the day."

I nodded, staring at the water beading on the outside of the lemonade glass, nodding more because I knew it was expected of me than because I was really agreeing with or understanding what my aunt was saying.

"For the summer?" I asked finally, and Aunt Hermione's look was pitying as she said, "No, Rose agreed to the full trip."

"Two years?" I gasped out. "She's left for two years?"

"At least," Aunt Hermione said apologetically. "But I've seen their itinerary, and it's incredibly ambitious. I'd be surprised, knowing those two, if two years doesn't turn into three before the end of it."

I stared at the table, my mind reeling. Rose, my careful, methodical, plan-everything-in-advance cousin, just packed up and left for a three-year trip around the world? It didn't make any sense, and it was the most out-of-character thing she'd ever done.

"Al," Aunt Hermione said gently then, laying a hand over mine and breaking me out of my reverie. "Don't be too hard on her, okay? She's not as lucky as you. She's still figuring all this out."

I opened my mouth to respond, though I had no idea what I was going to say, but that's when Uncle Ron started yelling from his study, "I will _kill_ him!" and stormed out into the dining room, a letter crumpled in his hand. "I don't know what Harry thinks he's trying to pull, but this is ridiculous, and you'd better believe I'm going to make sure he knows it!"

With an apologetic look to me, Aunt Hermione said, "What's Harry done, Ron?" Uncle Ron threw down the letter and pointed at it.

" _Look_ who he's put on my training squad! If he thinks for one instant that I am going to consent to train _that_ boy, then he—"

"Ron," Aunt Hermione broke in forcefully with a pointed look at me. Uncle Ron saw me sitting there and immediately swallowed whatever he'd been about to say.

"Al," he said with forced calm. "I didn't see you there."

"It's all right," I said, standing. "I was just about to go, anyway. Thanks for . . . thanks." And I beat a hasty retreat, my mind still in a muddle, but one thing was clear. I had to talk to Scorpius.

I stopped at home first, just to see if Aunt Hermione was right, if I'd somehow missed a note from Rose. But there was nothing in my room and no sign of an owl. I poked my head into Dad's study and asked after the morning post, just on the off chance something had come there. "A letter for you from Rose?" Dad asked, frowning. "No, I don't think so. Were you expecting one? I thought today was your third day thing."

"Yeah, it was," I said, trying not to sound as upset and angry as I was becoming. This had something to do with Scorpius and Rose and whatever had happened between them. I knew it. "Never mind. I'm heading to Scorpius's."

And I turned to go, but Dad stopped me with an, "If you're going to be stopping by the Malfoys, would you be willing to save an owl a trip?" And he sorted through a stack of letters on his desk til he found the one he was looking for and held it out to me.

"Sure," I said, reaching for it. "What do you need from Mr. Malfoy?"

"It's for Scorpius, actually." I gave him a bemused glance, then read the front of the envelope.

"Why are you writing to—?" I started to ask, but then I saw the return address. It didn't say "H. Potter." It said, "Dept of Magical Law Enforcement, Auror Division." And as I stared in disbelief at those words, I suddenly understood what Uncle Ron had been yelling about. Or more specifically, _who_ Uncle Ron had been yelling about. And it was confirmed in the next moment when Dad said, "It's his acceptance letter to the program. He had a _very_ strong application."

I couldn't breathe. I was frozen with shock, stunned into breathless silence, a strange and foreign feeling growing in the pit of my stomach. Dad's voice brought me back to myself. "Al?" he asked, sounding concerned. I forced my head up from the letter. "Al, you knew about this, right?"

I forced myself to shake off the stupor and answer as normally as possible. "I – yes, of course. The Aurors. Sorry, Dad, it's been a weird morning, I'm a little – I will happily deliver this letter. Excuse me." I'm not sure, but I think something decidedly _not_ resembling my normal tone snuck in at the end there. And before I could give Dad a chance to figure out that everything wasn't fine, I strode from the house to our Apparation point.

When I appeared at the edge of the Malfoy's estate, I no longer bothered to mask the black look on my face or do anything to curb the hot, hard anger filling the pit of my stomach. I knocked forcefully on the door, pounded on it, really, hard enough to feel the sting all along the edge of my hand. Mrs. Malfoy opened it, took one look at my face, and said, "Oh, dear. I think my son is in trouble."

I gave her a tight smile. "I'm afraid so, Mrs. Malfoy. Is he in?"

"In his room," she said, and stepped aside to let me in.

The door to his room was standing open, so I strode in without preamble.

"What the hell did you do to her?" I demanded, deciding to start with the issue of Rose and work my way up to the "lying about being a teacher" point.

Scorpius had been working on a letter, and I startled him, which gave me a grim sort of satisfaction. At the very least, I'd made an entrance. He looked up at me, frowning. "May I ask how you gained entry to my house?"

"Your mother likes me," I said shortly, in no mood for this. "Now would you mind answering my question?" Scorpius leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

"What did I do to whom?" It was a delay tactic, and I damn well knew it.

"To Rose!" I said forcefully, and at the mere mention of her name, I saw his jaw tighten in a way that was totally bewildering to me.

"What makes you think I did anything to her?" he asked, and there was no mistaking the stiffness and edge in his voice. The question was also defensive as hell. "Did she say something?"

"She's gone!" I thundered, and that, finally, got some sort of tangible reaction out of him. He sat straight up and stared at me.

"What do you mean, she's 'gone'?" he asked. "Where is she?"

"She's in Russia," I said, not bothering to keep the anger from my voice. "With Ivanna Krum. They're going on a World Tour. An extended Tour. For two years. Or more."

"And what makes you think I had anything to do with it?" he asked pointedly. Not, _Why would Rose do such a thing?_ Not, _I can't believe this, is everything all right?_ Not, _Are you okay, Al?_ No shock, no disbelief. Just that one defensive question that was really beneath him to have asked.

"Because they left two days ago, Scorpius, and I found out about it this morning. Apparently, Ivanna's been asking Rose to go for months, and Rose has always turned her down, until the invitation came the day after graduation. _Then_ she was more than willing to accept. Aunt Hermione said she left in quite a rush. Couldn't wait to get away."

"And you think it was me she was trying to get away from," he said then, and yeah, I thought I'd made that pretty clear. But if he needed me to spell it out for him a little better, I was more than happy to.

"I know she was trying to get away from something. Rose doesn't act on impulse–"

"And how do you know this was an impulse?" Scorpius demanded. "How do you know she hadn't been planning this for a while and just not told anyone?"

He couldn't have given me a better opening if I'd asked for it.

"Funny you should ask that, actually," I said in a stony voice, pulling Dad's letter from inside my robes. "I have something for you. From my father. Said he'd save the owl the trip since I was coming here anyway."

"What – what is that?" Scorpius asked, trying to keep his voice even.

"It's your acceptance letter," I said angrily, throwing it down onto Scorpius' desktop as hard as I could. "To the program I didn't know you'd applied for."

He looked up from the envelope at that, demanding, "Damn it, Al, is that what's got your wand in a knot? That I didn't tell you I'd applied to the Auror program?" Like it was no big deal. Like I was overreacting. Like he hadn't spent two years lying to me about this.

"Yes!" I shouted, angrier with him than I'd ever been. But that wasn't it, not really. And I didn't want to lose my temper, I wanted to talk about this calmly and rationally, so I forced myself to take a deep breath. "No," I said then, softer but no less upset. "It's just – this isn't a decision you make on a whim. This takes planning, and preparation, and – I didn't know."

I didn't want to have to explain further than that. We'd been best friends for seven years; I wanted Scorpius to understand why it hurt so much for me to learn about this the way that I had. And thankfully, we hadn't been best friends for seven years for nothing.

"I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want people to know I'd applied if I didn't get in," Scorpius said softly. "I didn't tell you because I didn't want anyone to think I'd gotten in on anything other than my own merit. I needed to do this on my own."

He looked at me then, and I couldn't pretend that didn't make an awful lot of sense. Damn him for having good reasons for his actions. I could feel the anger draining out of me. I've never been a particularly angry person; it takes a lot to get me to the point I'd been when I'd come to the Malfoys', and I was already losing my hold on it.

"I'm sorry," he said then. "I just – I did apply to be a teacher, it's my back-up. I didn't lie to you, I just–"

"A lie of omission is still a lie, Scorpius," I broke in quietly, not looking at him. I didn't want to outright accuse him of anything, but that was a pretty feeble justification, and he needed to know I wasn't buying it. When I did chance a look at him, he looked guilty and upset, ready to apologize again, but I knew he'd be apologizing for the wrong things, so I waved the unspoken words away. "I'm not mad at you over this," I told him. "I think the fact that you're going to be an Auror is brilliant, and it makes perfect sense. I just – I can't help but wonder if there's anything else you've conveniently forgotten to tell me."

I was giving him the opening. More than that, I was standing at the gaping double doors, ushering him across the threshold. All he had to do was take the step. I was ready to forgive and work to help him fix whatever had sent Rose halfway around the world. All he had to do was tell me.

But he didn't. He kept looking down at whatever letter he'd been writing before I'd come in, and then finally he met my gaze, but he still looked lost, like he didn't know what to say, so I helped him out. "What happened with Rose, Scorpius?" I asked, sitting on the edge of his bed. "Did you ever tell her?"

It wasn't an accusation, not anymore. I just, I wanted to know. I wanted him to tell me, to trust me, to be as open with me about this as he'd been about (almost) everything for our whole friendship.

"Rose and I were never going to work, Al," he finally said, and Gods, it was a frustrating answer because it was no kind of answer at all. "It took me too long to realize that, but that's the way it is. We were never going to work. There are a lot of different reasons why, but–"

"Like what?" I asked, pointed, blunt.

"Like the last thing I've kept from you," he said softly, and I felt a sense of foreboding at his words. I didn't think I was going to like whatever he was about to say. "I should have told you about this a long time ago, Al. About something that's going to happen in a few years." I crossed my arms and waited, and finally he said, "Her name is Honoria."

I sat there, waiting for more, for any kind of an explanation, but no, that was all I got. Until I asked pointedly, " _Whose_ name is Honoria?"

He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them and said the last thing I'd ever expected to hear from Scorpius. "I suppose, technically, you'd call her my betrothed."

I stared at him. I could do nothing else. Finally, after a good twenty seconds of white noise in my brain, I managed to get out, "Your — _betrothed_?"

"Are you familiar with the Bonding Ceremony?" he asked then, as if this were any other day, any other conversation. He might have been telling me about some new Transfiguration theory.

"I'm familiar with a highly antiquated and outdated ceremony of that name wherein parents promise their newborn children to one another in marriage like we're still stuck in the eighteen hundreds, but I _know_ you can't be talking about _that_ Bonding Ceremony."

He sighed, then, agitation finally showing as he stood to pace the room. "Your descriptions of 'antiquated' and 'outdated' aside, yes, that's the ceremony I'm talking about. I am currently sworn to a young lady named Honoria Ridgeton by virtue of vows we both made when I was eleven. In two years, we'll be Bonded, and the year after that, we'll marry. We may push it, actually, until I finish my training, but it will happen."

That last he said with his back to me so I couldn't see his face, and I knew it was by design. I stood as well, anger flaring once more in the pit of my stomach. "How long have you known about this?" I demanded. There was a long pause before he answered, as if he knew I wasn't going to like what he had to say.

"We were promised when I was two."

"So, your whole life, basically," I said immediately. "Certainly as long as you've known me. And when you were professing yourself in love with my cousin? The two and a half years you spent obsessing over her? All the while, engaged to someone else? And it never bothered you or seemed like something worth mentioning until now?"

I saw his fingers clench and unclench at his side, and I knew he was holding back his temper, but I really couldn't bring myself to care. My mind was reeling with shock, anger, betrayal.

"Of course it bothered me before now," he snapped. "Why do you think I kept putting off telling Rose? I have been warring over this for a long time."

"Not enough to tell your best friend about what I would classify as a pretty substantial part of your life," I shot back immediately. "How the hell could you have kept this from me, Scorpius? From _me_ , of all people! After everything I've done, for you, for Rose—" He turned to face me in one, fluid movement.

"Believe it or not, Al, I am allowed to have pieces of my life that you don't have access to! I am allowed to keep some things private."

"There's a difference between keeping something private and lying to my face!" I shouted, and yes, we were shouting now. Scorpius and I, who hadn't had one real fight in the whole seven years we'd been friends, were now shouting at one another across his bedroom.

"I never lied to you," he said in a harsh voice, and I snorted in disgust.

"Keep telling yourself that, Scorpius," I told him, "but we both know that's _exactly_ what you did. For two years, that's what you did. About Rose, about Honoria, about the Auror program, you lied to my _face_ , and you damn well know it. You can hide behind semantics and technicalities all day long if it'll help you sleep at night, but --"

"You know what I think this is really about, Al?" he snarled, advancing on me. "That you can't handle a life where you don't have complete control over everyone's futures. You know, much as you may enjoy meddling in my life, you don't have the right to dictate my career, my friends, _or_ my relationships, and it's high time you got that through your head! I don't have to come to you for approval for every decision I make! Believe it or not, my life is not about you, and I am sick and tired of finding your fingers stuck in it every time I turn around! Do you want a best friend, or just some puppet you can manipulate into the life you've design? Because if mucking about in my life like some kind of control-happy puppeteer is all the more you're going to do, then I'd rather you not be in it at all!"

It felt like I'd been punched in the stomach, attacked below the belt, and for a moment, I couldn't breathe. Never in a million years would I have expected an attack like that from him. I just stood there staring at him while he glared at me with more anger than I'd ever seen from him. And the anger I felt toward him, underneath the shock of betrayal, was every bit as strong.

Finally, I drew a deep breath, and angrier than I have ever been before, said, "You want me out of your life? Fine. I'm gone. But not before I make one thing absolutely clear. When I gave you help and advice because you came to me _begging_ for it, I wasn't meddling in your life. When I continued trying to help you get what you wanted because you never told me it had changed, I wasn't meddling in your life. And now? Trying to put back together the friendship that has been my standing block for the past seven years? I'm not _meddling_ in _your_ life! When whatever happened between you and Rose happened, you didn't just end _your_ friendship, Scorpius Malfoy, you ended mine, too, so you damn well better believe I have the right to try and put it back together! You ended mine, too, you _selfish_ bastard!"

I almost lost control on that. I could feel hot, angry tears spring up suddenly out of nowhere, and they almost choked away the end of that sentence. Forcing them away, I composed myself, then finished with all the disgust I could muster. "But clearly you don't give a damn, so I'm done. I have nothing more to say to you. Enjoy the future _you've_ chosen. I don't want to be a part of it."

And I walked out. Stormed out, more like it, past Mrs. Malfoy standing in the shadows watching me go, out the front doors, and to the Apparation point as fast as I could because I knew I wasn't going to hold it together much longer.

I managed to hang on until I got home. Dad saw me Apparate in; I know he did because he called my name, but I didn't stop. I couldn't stop. I kept going, past the house, past the garden, not stopping until I came to the giant oak tree that stood at the far edge of our property, and _there_ , I fell apart, collapsing onto the ground, drawing my knees up to my chest. My eyes burned with tears that sat like a lump in my throat but refused to fall, and my breath came in ragged gasps as I sat there, completely overwhelmed by everything that had just happened to me.

"Al?" It was no surprise to learn that Dad had followed me out to the garden. "I won't ask if anything's wrong, since that question answers itself, but . . . do you want to talk about it?" And while, for one moment, I wanted to tell him no, that he should go away and leave me alone to wallow in my misery, in the next moment, I had firmly reminded myself that talking to Dad had never once led me astray and, in fact, usually helped put a situation in perspective.

"I didn't know Scorpius had applied to the Auror program, Dad, I had _no idea_ ," I said in a raw voice.

"I had a feeling," Dad said, sinking gracefully to ground next to me.

"He didn't tell me. And Rose is in _Russia_. She left two days ago on some crazy trip around the world that will keep her away for three years, and she didn't _tell_ me! And now, I just found out that Scorpius is _betrothed_ —" The burning was back, the tightness in my throat choking off my words, and I had compose myself for a moment before I could continue. "For the past year, I've been reveling in how lucky I was supposed to be. Because other friendships would fall away and change after graduation, but _mine_ never would. How could it? When we were so close? When we knew each other so well? And now, all of a sudden — all these secrets and lies and — it's like, I blinked, and everything changed! Rose left me to find out from Aunt Hermione that she just ran away and abandoned us! I just got into a _shouting_ match with Scorpius, one that basically ended our friendship! Everything's falling to pieces, and I can't hold onto it, and I don't know what happened, and I _don't know how to fix it_."

I sounded young, I sounded desperate, I sounded lost, and I was all those things. I was eleven years old again and looking desperately to my father to put my life back together again.

He was silent for a long time before he answered, and when he spoke, it wasn't what I was expecting. "Just when I think I've found all the reasons I possibly could to hate the war and all we went through, another one rears its head," he said softly. "I have no first-hand advice to give you, Al. I never went through this." Only my father, ladies and gentlemen, can suggest with genuine regret that dealing with adolescent drama is preferable to being a hero at seventeen. From others, it might have sounded disingenuous, but I knew he meant every word, and I loved him for it.

"All I can give you," he continued, "is some general advice. First, shouting matches do not necessarily end friendships. Just look at your aunt and uncle." That won a smile out of me, albeit a small one. "Second," Dad went on, "the secret to your parents' successful marriage, cliched but true, don't go to bed angry. I don't know what your shouting match was about, but I promise that the worst thing you can do is let the day end without clearing the air. Don't let it fester, Al. Hard as it might be, unpleasant as it might seem, the best thing you can do is apol—"

"I don't want to apologize to Scorpius," I interrupted sullenly. "I want _him_ to apologize to _me_." Childish? Maybe. Beneath me? Probably. But it was how I felt.

Dad allowed me my outburst, but a moment later, said, "So you have nothing to apologize for? You handled the situation as well as you possibly could have, were perfectly reasonable, and said nothing you wouldn't have said in a calmer conversation?" Well, I couldn't exactly say yes to that, and I knew it, and Dad knew it, too. I stared at the ground and didn't answer, which was answer enough. "Then, as I was saying, hard as it might be–"

"He _lied_ to me, Dad." It wasn't an angry interruption this time. Just a statement, but that was really what was at the heart of all this. Scorpius had _lied_ to me. And not just once, but time and again. I couldn't get past that, and I didn't know if I could forgive it.

Dad sat silently for a long time, chin resting on his folded hands as he considered his words carefully. "Al," he finally said, "I admire the high level of respect you have for the truth. I admire the strength of your desire for openness and trust, and I admire that you are an incredibly honest and forthright person. But, speaking as someone whose job often does not permit him to tell the truth, speaking as someone who lies with great frequency, to protect people or shield them, or to accomplish an end goal . . . it is not always possible to be entirely truthful. Nor is it always the best course of action. Truth is, the world's not as simple as parents make it out to be when they raise their children. The world's a lot less black and white than parental lessons on honesty make it appear."

I sat silently, digesting this piece of information. I didn't know if I believed it or not. Of course, I knew Dad lied as part of his job. He had to. He lied to Dark Wizards to lure them into the Aurors' hands. He lied to frightened family members to reassure them. He lied about the whereabouts of his agents to keep them safe. I had known all that for a long time, and it had never bothered me. But now . . . could I blame Scorpius for lying and not blame Dad? Didn't I have to hold everyone to the same standard? And how did I define what that standard was? It was too much to think about all at once, and I didn't really like the answers I was coming up with.

Dad didn't let me ruminate for long. After a short silence, he said, "Let me ask you this. Did Scorpius lie? Or did he withhold the truth? Maybe stretch it, or only tell it halfway? What constitutes honesty, Al? What standards are you holding your friends to, and do you meet those standards yourself?"

"Of course!" I said sharply, almost affronted that he would even ask, that he would even accuse me of being less than honest. Also, I may have been overcompensating for the startling reality of hearing my own thoughts given voice.

"Al," Dad said gently but pointedly then, "when I asked you if you knew that Scorpius had been admitted to the Auror program, you said yes."

That stopped me cold. Frantically, I thought back to the conversation, and I was stunned to discover that Dad was right. I _had_ said yes. And what's more, the lie hadn't even _registered_. I'd been so set on getting to Scorpius, I hadn't even noticed. And if I hadn't noticed _this_ time, how many others?

Dad let me have my moment of self-crisis, but he interrupted it pretty quick, before I could get in too deep. "I didn't point this out to you to make you doubt yourself," he told me. "I told you; I admire how highly you value the truth, and I don't want you to lose that. But I do want you to understand how fluid and changeable the concept of truth is. I don't think you're angry with Scorpius because he lied. That may be part of it, but I think there's something else driving this, and what's more, I think you know that, too."

I had to shut my eyes against that, because Dad was right, like he always is. It's infuriating, except that it isn't, really. Eyes still squeezed shut, I stopped avoiding it and admitted the full truth. "I'm scared," I told him. "I'm scared that I'm losing them, both of them, and I – I _can't_ lose this friendship, Dad, it's the only one I have."

"I don't believe that." My eyes flew open to meet his. "Your friendship with Rose and Scorpius may be the strongest you have, and it may be the most important to you, but the only one?" He shook his head. "I know you, Al, and I've seen you, and that's not true. But more importantly, if that's how you feel, then are you really going to sit in this garden and refuse to talk to Scorpius until he apologizes? How is that going to fix anything?"

I felt the shame then, and regret over the things I'd said, and my self-righteous anger started to leech away. I sighed heavily and said, "It's not."

"Swallow your pride, Al," Dad said then. "Trust me, it's not worth it. Empathy is more important than honesty and more important than pride. Understanding _why_ Scorpius withheld the truth, is more important than the fact that he did. You have to be able to put yourself in his shoes, just as he needs to be able to put himself into yours. You may be angry with each other, but as friends, you owe one another that much. Your friendship is strong enough to come through this, but one of you has to be the first to come forward and be willing to talk and to listen. And the key word there is 'first.' Because the other has to be just as willing when the time comes."

There was something about those words that made me sit up and take notice. I don't know, maybe it was the volume at which he spoke them, maybe it was the slight shift in focus, but I suddenly knew without a doubt that we were no longer alone in the garden.

"He's here, isn't he," I said then. "He's standing right over there." Dad gave me an apologetic smile.

"I'll leave you two to work things out," he said with a gentle squeeze on my shoulder. And as Dad headed back toward the house, nodding to Scorpius on the way, I climbed to my feet and turned to face my best friend.

He looked as chastised and chagrined as I felt. We stood there, awkwardly, with ten feet between us, waiting for the other to speak. I stood with my arms crossed and my shoulders hunched, and he ran his right hand over his upper left arm the way he does when he's nervous or anxious, and we met each other's gaze only briefly before looking away. Finally, not being able to stand the awkwardness, I spoke.

"Hey."

"Hey," he replied, and then we were nowhere again. I cast around for something to say. I could feel Dad's eyes on me through the window.

"So," I said finally, "come here on your own or did you get a parental talking to, too?" I realized belatedly that it could have sounded like a jab, which wasn't how I meant it, and I suffered a moment of panic before Scorpius said, "Naw, you know my mum. She doesn't give 'talking to's as such; she just looms in the doorway until you take the hint."

I actually laughed at that, not a lot, but enough, and I knew we'd gotten past the worst because the next thing I knew, we were saying, "I'm sorry," at the same time. I gestured for him to go first, and he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.

"I should have told you about Honoria a long time ago," he said softly. "I just, I didn't know how. Used to be, everyone was betrothed, so you didn't have to figure out how to tell people. Now, though? You're right, it is . . . old-fashioned, and I didn't know how to tell you. When I was eleven, it wasn't something I really thought about, and the older I got, the more I dreaded the inevitable question of 'why didn't you say anything before now,' so I just kept putting it off. And then I told you about Rose in a moment of panic, and . . ." He sighed again, looking upset and pained. "It all got so complicated so quickly."

There was a voice in the back of my head that wanted to argue, _But that's what you had me for! Your best friend! When things got complicated, you were supposed to talk to me so I could help_ fix _them!_

But then the calmer, more rational voice reminded the first, _Empathy, Al. Put yourself in his shoes. If he had a cousin who was best friends with both of you and you fell in love with her but were engaged to someone else, would you have told him about it?_

 _Yes_ , was the stubborn reply from the first voice, and inwardly, I sighed. Voice number two really should have seen that response coming.

 _Empathy_ , voice two stressed again. _It's not about you, it's about Scorpius. Empathy, Al_.

Getting confused by the inner dialogue, I shook my head to dismiss the voices. "I understand," is what I said to Scorpius. He'd been braced for my response, but that hadn't been what he'd expected. His eyes lit up.

"Do you?" he asked, barely suppressing the relief in his voice.

"I'm . . . trying to," I amended. "It's not easy, but I'm trying. But Scorpius," I said, snatching away his sigh of relief before it was fully realized. I hated to do it, but I had to speak my mind. There was still too much left unanswered, and I'd ask as gently as possible, but I had to know. "Isn't there a negation clause in the Bonding agreement? Isn't there a stipulation saying that either one of you can call it off at any point, for circumstances exactly like this one?"

He closed his eyes. Clearly, he'd been hoping I hadn't known that. "Yes," he finally said. "There is. But I don't want to use it. I made a promise."

"When you were eleven," I stressed gently. "Did you even understand what it meant?"

"No, but I understand it now, Al," he said, the tiniest hint of an edge back in his voice. "I understand it now, and I owe it to Honoria."

"But what about Rose?" I asked, because I had to ask.

"What _about_ Rose?" Scorpius countered, his voice louder and angrier. "She's gone, Al. She left. She's halfway around the world. She made her choice, and it very clearly wasn't me."

"You're angry at her," I said then, and it was such a foreign idea to me that I was half expecting him to refute it. But he didn't.

"Yes," he said flatly. "I'm angry at her, Al, I'm pissed as hell at her!"

"But you won't tell me why."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down, and I was at a loss. I could not imagine what had happened to evoke such feelings in him. "No," he finally said. "I won't. Because my anger shouldn't affect your friendship with Rose. And it shouldn't affect your friendship with me, either. I am angry at Rose, but what's done is done, and nobody, not me, not Rose, and not even you can undo it. We have to move forward. I know you want what's best for me, and I know you wanted Rose and I to work. I wanted it, too. But it isn't going to happen, and I have to make the decisions for my future on my own. They have to be mine, Al. And this is what I choose. You don't have to like it, or agree with it. But I need you to stand by me. As your best friend, I am asking you to support me."

And there it was. The phrase I couldn't ignore. _As your best friend_. As my best friend, yes, Scorpius had every right to ask this of me. But I knew I couldn't do it. Not and keep my integrity intact. I couldn't support something I wholeheartedly disagreed with, and besides, Rose was my best friend, too, and I owed her just as much as I owed Scorpius.

"Scorpius," I said, "you are my best friend. But I can't support something I don't agree with." I saw his jaw tighten. "However," I continued, "you're right. It _is_ your future, and it _is_ your decision to make, and if this is what you believe is the right choice, then I won't stand in your way, either. In this matter, I will be a neutral party." The words left a bad taste in my mouth, but I knew what Dad would say. In compromise, everyone walks away a little disappointed.

After a moment, Scorpius nodded. "I suppose I can't ask any more than that," he said, and if it was said a bit stiffly, at least we weren't shouting at one another this time. Unfortunately, I had one more thing I had to say.

"But Scorpius, you have to know that I'm not going to stop trying to put this friendship back together. Not without a better reason than you and Rose having a vague falling out. That's my right."

Again, I got a tight nod, accepting but not particularly happy about it. "You're free to try all you like, Al," he said softly.

And then, there was nothing more to be said, not really. The friendship was patched together, but we still stood on shaky ground, and we both knew it. We'd be treading carefully for a while. "When does your internship at Mungo's start?" he asked then, getting us on neutral territory.

"Start of August, provided my NEWT scores are high enough," I said, grateful for the change in conversation. We spent a few moments talking about the summer and our plans, and then Scorpius headed out.

I sank back down on the ground under the tree. That had been exhausting, and before I went back inside to Dad's questions, I needed to puzzle a few things out.

I was starting to piece together what had to have happened at the end of the year. It wasn't hard, really, but it was frustrating because I had no idea whether or not I was right, and I had no way to confirm any of it. I just had my instincts, which, granted, were very good, but not infallible. But as near as I could tell, things had played out something like this:

Scorpius had gone to find Rose and confess his feelings. But before he could actually take that step, he had gotten cold feet, his guilt over his promise to Honoria keeping him from saying anything to Rose. But Rose had picked up on it, and knew there was something Scorpius wasn't telling her, and that was why things had been so awkward the last few days of school. In her panicked and stressed state, she had probably assumed the worst in terms of what she thought he was holding back from her. All that had festered and built up until the train ride home, when things had boiled over, and Rose had done _something_ to make Scorpius angrier than I'd ever seen him, and she'd felt so guilty over it that she'd left at the first opportunity.

That was my best bet, anyway. But for the life of me, I could not imagine what Rose could have done.

It was incredibly frustrating, like trying to put a puzzle together when you don't have all the pieces and two puzzles have been mixed up in the same box and you don't have either picture to work from. And if that metaphor seems overly complicated and hard to understand, then you have an even better idea what the actual situation was like.

I sat out in our garden trying to puzzle it all out for a long time, but eventually, I had to give it up because there were just too many gaps. There were too many answers I didn't have, and I couldn't focus the information into anything resembling a complete picture. It was infuriating. I'm a Ravenclaw; I hate not having answers, but more than that, I hate not having a way to obtain answers.

If I thought I was going to get any more out of Rose than I had out of Scorpius, I was sorely mistaken. I wrote her that night, a letter that I started and crumpled up more times than I care to admit. Suffice it to say, it was one of the most difficult letters I've ever penned. The letter I finally sent was was:

 _Dear Rose_ ,

_I have a feeling you are dreading this letter. I have this feeling because this morning was three days and you knew full well I would show up at your doorstep only to find you gone. When your mum told me where you were, I was shocked speechless, Rose. I couldn't believe you would leave the country and not tell me. I couldn't believe you would go without saying goodbye. Were you really so frightened of my reaction that you couldn't tell me in person? Were you afraid I would disapprove or be angry with you? I do not and I am not. I'm only upset that you didn't feel you could tell me yourself. I'm only upset that I found out from your mother and not from you._

_Your mother believes that your choice has to do with being overwhelmed by the end of school, but I know there's more to it than that. I know that this has at least something to do with your falling out with Scorpius. I wish you would confide in me, Rose._

_All that being said, I am happy for you. I think this Tour is a brilliant idea (though I do wish it weren't so long), and I know you're in for some amazing experiences. Enjoy them, Rose, and I do hope you'll write to me about the places you go and the people you meet. I will live my adventures vicariously through you, if you'll allow. It is my intention to continue to be as close a friend to you as ever, and as you know, I always get my way in things like this._

_Your loving cousin,_

_Al_

And she did reply, a gushing mess of apologies and miserable admittances of her own cowardice. She'd wanted to tell me, she said, and hated herself that she hadn't, but the end of school and everything that had happened had been so confusing (she wrote), and so when Ivanna offered an escape, she took it, but since she knew her sudden decision would stun everyone, the best option she'd seen at the time was simply to cut ties and run, and fix it all up later.

And that was it. That was all the more I got. Oh, the rest of the letter was full of details of Russia and Ivanna's home and what she was already learning just by sitting with Ivanna and planning out the trip, but concerning why she'd left and what had happened? I might as well not even have asked.

It was a trend that would continue. When I told her about what our classmates were up to, and how the family was faring, and how everyone doing, she would respond with enthusiasm, ask questions, write with regret over the things she was missing (except, not too much, because she'd be in the Swiss Alps or Greece or somewhere at the time). But if I asked questions about the end of school or tried to talk about Scorpius, I might as well have written in invisible ink for all the reply I got. And after the first few attempts, I stopped trying.

Other than that, though, if it's possible, I grew even closer to Rose in the time she was gone. She wrote to me constantly, tomes of letters, capturing every detail of her travels and what she was learning. I think her letters to me became documentation of a sort, her way of keeping a travel diary, and I certainly didn't mind. Her enthusiasm and excitement once the trip was truly underway made it easy to forget that she'd gone as a means of escape in the first place. The more I read, the more clear it became that Rose was doing what she'd always been meant to do. She was thriving, and I was happy for her.

My friendship with Scorpius didn't fare so well. Oh, we'd mended sufficiently, and we remained as close as we'd been in school, and there was nothing lacking. But there were now things we couldn't talk about, which we'd never had before. We couldn't talk about Rose because he refused to, and we couldn't talk about Honoria or the Bonding because I refused to. And it's not that we came close to those topics with any regularity; it's just that they were there, and because they were, there was a strain between us that had never been there before. Though, admittedly, that strain grew significantly less with time.

And so the next phase of our lives began. Did I throw away my hopes for Rose and Scorpius? Of course not, but I did shelve them. I put them away in a back corner of my mind, recognizing that I could do nothing more until Rose was back in the country. But I fully intended to do everything in my power to break up the Bonding with Honoria and see Rose and Scorpius together, in love, and happy. I owed them that, I reasoned. Someone had to fight for their happiness if they weren't going to. As soon as Rose returned, I could start that fight. I could only hope that Rose's return would come before it was too late.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

* * *

Three years passed.

I hesitate to put it like that because it makes it sound as though nothing of importance happened in those three years, which is blatantly untrue. My cousin Victoire married Teddy Lupin. The next round of grandkids finished up at Hogwarts. My sister Lily shocked everyone by being accepted as an Unspeakable in the Death Chamber of the Department of Mysteries. My cousin Lucy, all of eighteen and one year into her professional Quidditch career, became the youngest ever Captain of the Chudley Cannons, cementing her position as Uncle Ron's favorite niece. Victoire and Teddy announced they were expecting their first child. I successfully completed 75% of my initial training to be a Healer, Scorpius successfully completed 90% of his training to be an Auror, and Rose visited more than 20 countries around the world.

So, yes, plenty _happened_ in those three years. But in terms of the relationship between Rose and Scorpius, nothing of importance happened in those three years. Actually, nothing at all happened in those three years. I know this firsthand because I was trying very hard to get something, _anything_ , really, to happen. I failed, consistently. Rose and Scorpius were determined to have nothing at all to do with one another, and with Rose out of the country, I could do nothing but comply. And so, three years passed.

We'll pick the story up again in late March of 2026, about a month before Scorpius's 21st birthday. It was something of a blessing that they had, in fact, decided to postpone the ceremony for a year so Scorpius could finish his Auror training, because if they hadn't, there would have been no chance at all to stop things from happening. But they had. They'd rescheduled the Bonding for Scorpius's 21st birthday, but here we were, a month away from that important date, and I realized I hadn't heard any Bonding talk at all. It was curious, decidedly so. This was a day Scorpius had been very clear to inform me would be happening, so I was pretty sure I'd be getting an invitation. And yet, no word.

I wanted to know, I _needed_ to know – had something happened? Had the Bonding been called off? Or had Scorpius just stopped mentioning it to me the way I'd stopped mentioning Rose to him? Of course, I couldn't ask Scorpius. After three years of determined silence on the topic, inquiring about the Bonding would be out of character, and Scorpius would interpret it in one of two ways: either that was I interested in the event (entirely untrue), or that I was up to something meddlesome (almost entirely untrue). The truth would never occur to him – that I was after information, nothing more. And so, I went to the person I went to when I needed to know something about Scorpius that I couldn't ask him directly: his mother.

Mrs. Malfoy and I had always gotten on famously, much to Scorpius's dismay. And she was the one I called on now.

"So," I said as casually as I could over tea the day I dropped by. "Scorpius's birthday is in a month. Any big plans?"

"Not really," she said with a considering look. "I imagine we'll have a fancier dinner than usual, but nothing serious."

"Wait," I said, as if I'd only just remembered. "Isn't something with the Bonding supposed to happen on his twenty-first birthday? Whatever happened with that? I haven't heard Scorpius mention anything about it for a long time. I hope nothing unfortunate has occurred."

Mrs. Malfoy gave me a piercing but amused look, and I knew she hadn't been fooled in the slightest. "Not at all," she said smoothly. "With Scorpius's birthday at such an awkward time of year, we agreed to hold the Bonding later in the summer. Also, Honoria leaves on a research expedition to South America next week, and she'll be gone until mid-July. So we've planned the ceremony for August 14, to give her a month to prepare and re-acclimate." August 14, also known as the week before Rose's birthday, and mine. Happy birthday to us. "I hope you've kept your calendar clear." She raised an eyebrow, teasing me, poking fun, but all I heard was that I'd just been given an extra, unexpected, four and a half months, and Honoria would be on a different continent for most of them.

My mind, which had been at rest on this issue for almost three years, jumped to life. I didn't know how much longer Rose's tour was scheduled to last, but _surely_ it would be wrapping up soon. _Surely_ they were running out of countries to visit, if nothing else! Plan after tentative plan raced through my mind.

Mrs. Malfoy sighed with a half smile and shook her head. "Al," she said, "You've got that look on your face."

"What look?" I asked, hoping my calm mask would stay in place. She fixed me with a shrewd gaze.

"The look that means you're up to something," she said pointedly. I shook my head.

"I have no such look, Mrs. Malfoy," I assured her, but she wasn't fooled.

"Al," she said softly. "I know what you want. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't understand why. But you need to remember that she hurt him very badly."

"Do you know what happened?" I asked her, dropping the act that she had so easily seen through.

"No," she said with a sigh. "But I know my son. And I don't for a moment believe that the fault for whatever happened is all on one side, but . . . just be careful, Al. Try not to hurt people further in your desire to make them happy."

The statement made me uncomfortable, which was probably the intention. "No pain, no gain, though, right?" I asked, trying for levity and failing.

"Do you have the right to make that decision for them?" she asked softly.

"I just want my friends back," I said. "I want them to be friends again, that's all."

"Well, I don't think that is all," she said gently. "And I don't doubt that your heart's in the right place. Just be careful."

A wise woman, Astoria Malfoy. I probably should have listened to her.

Anyway, Scorpius's birthday came and went with very little pomp, and I waited with bated breath to hear something, anything really, that might help me.

And then, at the beginning of May, it came. The letter I'd been waiting to get from Rose for almost three years.

 _Dear Al,_ she wrote,

_Well, cousin mine, the time has come. Three years, 33 countries, countless hundreds of wizards and witches, and Ivanna and I are finally coming home. There's still so much we could see, but the money her father set aside for this trip is almost out, and she and I are both ready to be back. We'll spend a week or two visiting important sites of the British Isles, but then we'll officially wrap up. I'll be home by the end of the month, and I know you'll be happy to hear that._

_This has been such an incredible time, Al! It started out as an escape, but it's turned into so much more. I heard back from the International Liaison's Office, and they've accepted me as an intern. This will be what my life will be about. Maybe all that floundering I faced in seventh year, maybe all I've gone through was just to get me here in the end. I feel I've finally found my purpose, and I can't wait to start this new part of my life. I'll see you at the end of the month._

_Rose_

I couldn't help but grin like an idiot when I read her letter. My cousin was coming home. Rose would be back.

I learned her exact date of return two weeks later, and though the thought crossed my mind momentarily, I decided pretty quickly I wouldn't be bothering with any 'three day' nonsense. I intended to give her one, to get unpacked and settled, but it turns out I can be pretty impatient when I haven't seen my best friend for almost a year and a half. Three hours after she returned, I was at Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron's.

"She's up in her room," Aunt Hermione said with a laugh when she opened the door. I grinned at her, then bounded up the steps.

She had her back to me, taking clothes from one of the many trunks open about the room. "You've been home for three hours," I said from the doorway. "And you're still not unpacked?"

She turned, a grin on her face. "Al!" she said, and ran to hug me. "Weren't you supposed to give me three days?"

"Couldn't wait," I told her.

"I'm glad you didn't," she said with a smile. "I've missed you, Al."

"Not half as much as I've missed you," I informed her. "You had all the people of the world to see to keep your mind occupied. I was stuck with James." She laughed.

"Punishment indeed," she sympathized. "How can I make it up to you?"

"How about a walk in the gardens?" I suggested, extending my arm. She took it with exaggerated propriety, as expected. "So," I said, once we'd made it outside. "Tell me everything."

"Everything?" she repeated with a raised eyebrow. "I've told you a good deal of it already, and everything's quite a lot to cover. Could you narrow it down for me?"

"Okay." I pretended to consider. "How many languages do you speak now?"

"Well, do you mean fluently, or enough to get by, because they're very different answers."

"Let's go with fluently." She had to think about it for a moment, which was just like her. Only my cousin can know so many languages that she has to stop and count.

"Nine," she finally said. "No – ten. Forgot to count Norwegian."

"Grievous error indeed," I said with mock solemnity. " Forgetting to count Norwegian." She shoved me.

"Shut up," she said with a laugh. "When you stay in a place three or four months, you pick things up. And I already knew French from Aunt Fleur, and Ivanna's been teaching me Russian for years, and they say the first two are the hardest, don't they?" I was laughing by the end of her defense, and she shoved me again.

I spent all afternoon there, catching up with her. We talked about her internship that was starting at the beginning of June. We talked about how she'd left Ivanna and what her plans were. And we talked about me and St. Mungo's and how everything was going there.

We did not talk about Scorpius. Which was odd, because I'd intended to. I had to tell Rose he was getting married at the end of the summer, I had to find out what had happened between them, and work her around to repairing their friendship. And that afternoon gave me several opportunities to do so, but . . . I don't know. She was walking on air, happier than I'd ever really seen her, and I couldn't bear to break the mood. So I left without once bringing it up. I'd wait for a better opportunity, I told myself.

The opportunity came about a week later, the first day of her internship. I stopped by the house after I got off work to see how the day had gone, and was informed that she'd run into Scorpius at the Ministry – literally. Apparently, she'd been walking around a corner with an armful of scrolls and hadn't seen him coming from the opposite direction. Not necessarily how I would have chosen for them to meet again, but at least it had happened. We spoke briefly of him being an Auror, which she hadn't known, and then, there was my opening.

"I don't suppose he told you he's getting married?" I asked as gently as I could. Her eyes met mine, startled.

" _Married_?" she repeated, and she sounded as shocked as I'd felt upon finding out myself. I told her about the Bonding, and was darkly pleased to hear her share my own opinions on the subject.

"Technically, he's still single," I said in what I hoped was an offhand manner. "He's single right up until the day of the Bonding. He could still call it off." Best to plant the idea in her head now, I figured, and give it a chance to take root.

"He won't," she said with quiet conviction. So much for that plan.

"He might," I tried to argue, but she cut me off.

"He won't. You know him, Al. You know he won't." I did, yes, and I couldn't argue with her assessment, but that didn't mean I had to be happy about it. And finally, I asked the question I most wanted answered.

"Whatever happened to the two of you, anyway?" I asked, and I watched her carefully as she answered. She was looking away, out into the rose garden.

"Nothing," she said softly with a shake of her head, and yeah, I didn't believe that for an instant.

"Rose, you haven't spoken to him in three years," I pointed out. I did so as gently as I could, but this was important. "You went on a trip around the world to get away from him—"

"It wasn't like that," she interrupted me, which I knew was _blatantly_ untrue, as she'd all but told me in her letters that it had been _exactly_ like that. The trip had started out as an escape, she'd said, and I knew full well what she'd been trying to escape from, even if neither she nor Scorpius would confirm it. "Nothing _happened_ between us. We just . . . grew apart."

I almost called her on that. I wanted to, because she was lying to my face and I knew it, but I kept myself in check. In the three years she'd been gone, I had gotten better about the lying thing, and one of the things I had come to realize is that people aren't always lying to withhold the truth. Sometimes, they lie because they want to convince themselves that the lie is the truth. In this instance, I knew that was where Rose was coming from. I could see the emotion just barely contained, the very present and sudden reminder of what she had left so long ago to escape. And so, I let it go. Just this once.

"We'll let that be the answer for now," I told her gently, and I think it surprised her. "And we'll pretend that I believe that best friends of seven years can just grow apart naturally, as you suggest."

I didn't want to move too quickly, but I did want to make it clear to her that I knew she was lying.

I left not long after that, debating my next move. In the end, I decided to see what Scorpius had to say about the incident. The next day was our regular lunch day, and I decided to not-so-casually bring up the event and see what happened.

"So, I hear you ran into Rose yesterday," I said cheerfully, and was met with a glare.

"Yeah," he said darkly. "Thanks, by the way, for letting me know she was back in the country, that was real helpful." I raised my eyebrows in response to his sarcasm.

"I'm sorry," I said with an edge in my voice, "I was under the impression that you didn't want to hear anything about Rose. Has that changed?" He clenched his jaw and couldn't meet my eye. After a moment, he ran a hand through his hair, something he only did when he was agitated.

"A little warning would have been nice, is all," he said stiffly. It was only the strength of our friendship that kept me from rolling my eyes.

"She's in the International Liaison's Office, you're in the Auror Department, and it's a big Ministry. I didn't think it would be an issue."

There was a bit of slightly awkward silence – all on his end, I was perfectly comfortable – then he said, "She didn't know I was in the Auror program."

"No," I said easily. "I don't imagine she did."

"You didn't tell her?" he asked.

"Believe it or not, Scorpius, she's been as loathe to receive information about you these past three years as you've been to receive information about her, so I _thought_ I was following the wishes of both of you by keeping my mouth shut. But since this incident occurred, both of you have been very quick to jump on me for not keeping you informed."

Scorpius kept his eyes on the ground, his jaw set, his face bearing that look I saw so little, the "Al's right, but I really don't want to give him the satisfaction of admitting it" – I loved that look.

But I'd learned all I needed to for the time being, so I decided to let him off the hook. "So, how's training? You're getting pretty close to your qualifying examinations, aren't you?"

He took the new thread of conversation like a drowning man with a life preserver, and that, too, made me smile inwardly. Because I had confirmed over the last two days what I'd been waiting to confirm for the last three years – Rose and Scorpius still had feelings for each other. Whatever had happened three years ago hadn't changed that. Oh, they were determined to ignore the feelings, that much was clear. But it was equally clear that they were still there. And that meant I had a chance, because I had something to work with.

At the end of the lunch, we parted as always with a "See you next week," and that immediately put an idea into my head. As soon as I was home, I sent Rose a quick owl: _Lunch next Tuesday? Noon?_

 _Can't do Tuesday. How about Monday?_ she sent back.

 _Monday it is_ , I wrote, and then immediately sent a message to Scorpius: _Something's come up. Can we do lunch next week on Monday instead of Tuesday?_

When he answered in the affirmative, I couldn't help but smile. Everything was going according to plan.

Now, Rose and Scorpius will give you a very different account of that lunch, one that casts significant shadows on my character, so I would just like to emphatically state (though they to this day refuse to believe me) that it was never my intention to invite them both to the same lunch and then not show up myself, forcing them to talk to one another. I may be manipulative, but I'm not cruel. No, I fully intended to be there before either of them, to convince them to stick it out, and to act as a buffer.

I was almost out the door of Mungo's when my supervising Healer asked me to go on two last rounds with him, and what was I supposed to say? _Sorry, my two estranged best friends don't know they're meeting each other for lunch, and I'll be a pretty ineffectual matchmaker if I don't get there before them_? Right.

So, yeah, I was late, and I was freaking out about it the whole way there because I _knew_ Rose and Scorpius wouldn't believe me. And sure enough, I got to The Leaky Cauldron close to twenty minutes after noon, to find the two of them sitting at a table outside looking more uncomfortable than I'd seen either of them look in a very long time. I hurried over, determined to at least try and salvage the meal, but no dice. They both took off, both angry at me, leaving me sitting there all alone.

"Well, that could have gone better," I muttered to myself and downed the last of Rose's lemonade – I mean, I ended up paying for it, so I figure I was entitled.

The incident set me back, I won't deny it. For almost a month after, every time I invited them anywhere, I got a catty, "I don't know, is Rose/Scorpius going to be there?" and a staunch refusal to attend if I answered yes.

But I didn't give up. I kept at it. And slowly but surely, I got results. Slowly but surely I brought them together, and you know what? Their friendship started to knit back together. There were moments when they would forget they were mad at each other, and we'd laugh together at something and it would feel just like old times. Until one of them remembered that it wasn't old times and shut down. That happened more often than I like to admit.

And yeah, as often as there were solid moments, there were the moments where everyone involved was decidedly uncomfortable, and yeah, I knew full well that I was putting them through hell and causing some pain and all that. But I had my reasons, and they were twofold. First, if Rose and Scorpius were united in irritation against me, then they were at least united, if only for a moment or two, and that was exactly what I wanted. And second, the stubborn and potentially childish reason, neither of them ever came out and _told_ me that I was making them uncomfortable.

Now, this may seem like a petty thing, but it wasn't. All I'd been told by either of them was that they'd had a slight argument three years ago, and had then grown apart while Rose was out of the country, and really, my actions were completely reasonable given that information. The only reason I knew there was more going on was because I'd deduced it, but there was no possible way for me to know exactly what had happened because they both staunchly refused to tell me what had happened or even acknowledge that anything had. They were the ones determined to pretend that no serious falling out had occurred. My actions were perfectly in line with that pretense. As long as they were going to stubbornly refuse to be open with me about what had ended our friendship, I was going to stubbornly refuse to alter my actions in any way. They couldn't have it both ways.

So, childish? Yeah, maybe a little. But I think I had some ground on which to stand.

But the end of the summer was fast approaching, and I wasn't making nearly as much progress as I wanted, and needed, to be making, and I knew I was going to have to ramp up my attempts. Honoria was back in England by this time, and Scorpius was no closer to calling off the Bonding than he'd been at the start of the summer.

But then came the Auror Initiation Ceremony. And with the Auror Initiation Ceremony, I got the chance I'd been waiting for.

My dad's revamped Auror training program was a lot easier to get into than it had been in years past, but the final initiation onto the Force was a lot harder. They operated on a rotation system, training a new batch of recruits for three years every three years, the idea being that if a recruit didn't qualify, he or she could immediately jump back into the training rotation and try again.

And a lot of recruits didn't qualify for the Force. Like I said, qualifying was tough. Each of the five squad leaders taught a different area of study, and you had to sit written examinations for each – History, Ethics, Concealment and Disguise, Stealth and Tracking, and Spellwork. Then Concealment and Disguise, Stealth and Tracking, and Spellwork all had additional practical examinations, all of which culminated in a final practical examination in which recruits were sent into an obstacle course to fight a duel in simulated terrain against one of the five squad leaders, also known as the best the Auror Department had to offer – my dad, my Uncle Ron, Seamus Finnegan, Padma Patil, and Evelyn Savage. The Elite.

I barely saw Scorpius in the two weeks before his examinations, for obvious reasons, which meant that Rose barely saw him, but I reconciled myself to this fact because I knew it also meant that Honoria was barely seeing him.

I had no doubt whatsoever that Scorpius would make it onto the Force, most likely with distinction, but that didn't stop me from hounding Dad the minute he got home after the final examinations, something I only got away with because Mum was out covering a game that night.

"So?" I asked as soon as he was through the door. "He made it, right? He passed?"

"Al, you know I'm not supposed to discuss that with you," Dad said pointedly.

"I'm not asking to know his placement or his score," I said, following him to his study. "And he's gonna tell me himself."

"Al, I teach the Ethics course, remember?" Dad said with a smile as he unpacked his briefcase. "Pretty sure telling you about Scorpius's performance on his examinations is a textbook example of unethical behavior." I rolled my eyes.

"Fine," I grumbled. "But will you tell me who he was matched with in his final? That's public information, right? That gets posted right before the exam? Because if he got paired up with Finnegan, I think he could have made a decent showing. Finnegan has a very strong offense, and he's the aggressor in a duel, so if Scorpius could work a wedge into that offense and turn him on the defense, that's impressive. And I know Scorpius can do that. But if he was up against Savage, he need a whole different tactic—"

"Fascinating as it is hearing you describe the strengths and weaknesses of my team," Dad broke in, "I'm starving and exhausted. Would you like to continue this attempted interrogation in the kitchen?"

"Just tell me who he was paired against," I pleaded, and Dad got this little smile on his face.

"Me," he said simply. I groaned. As I'm sure I don't need to tell you, Dad was a renowned dueler.

"You didn't cream him too badly, did you?" I asked as Dad left the room. Calling after him, I asked, "I mean, did he at least make a good showing of himself?"

"Better than that," Dad's voice drifted back. "He won."

But he refused to tell me any more about it because my father enjoys watching me suffer.

I did get the whole story out of Scorpius later, but _man_ , did that take some doing. I have never met anyone so averse to tooting his horn. Scorpius gets downright uncomfortable when asked to talk about his own accomplishments. Of course, this might be partially due to the fact that, at least at first, Scorpius didn't count winning a duel against my father as an accomplishment. In fact, he was pretty sure they were going to chuck him out of the program for it, bless his little heart.

They didn't, of course. In fact, he passed with the highest possible distinction, first in his class, and at the Initiation ceremony, my uncle Ron was beaming with pride, almost equal to the amount of pride he'd displayed when Rose was named Head Girl or won her internship in the International Liaison's Office.

I should, perhaps, explain, given that last you heard, my uncle was ready to murder my father for assigning Scorpius to his training squad. A lot had changed since then. Uncle Ron had indeed stormed into my father's office to give Dad a piece of his mind, only to have Dad knock his feet out from under him with a forceful reminder that their war had been fought to stop discrimination based on family. So Uncle Ron spent Scorpius's first two weeks just waiting for him to drop out under the pressure, but when Scorpius didn't and when he proved to Uncle Ron just what he could do and that this was something he genuinely wanted, well. Things changed. Over the three years they spent together, Uncle Ron had grown to respect Scorpius's talents and determination, and more than that, he'd come to like him, too. So, yeah. Uncle Ron was ridiculously proud of the student he had so carefully taught.

Unfortunately, plenty of others weren't. Scorpius's parents didn't come to the ceremony because even though Draco Malfoy actually worked for the Department, he worked as a spy, so most people weren't aware of it. They would expect Draco Malfoy's presence to be treated as a threat, and so Dad would have to pretend that it was to keep Mr. Malfoy's cover, and that was a situation Scorpius's father preferred to avoid. So no, they weren't there, but that didn't mean people weren't pressing against Scorpius all night long, making insinuations.

I watched him, from across the hall as I worked the crowd myself, managing to move just a little bit closer each time I saw his jaw tighten with forced politeness, finally able to actually approach him just in time to hear him say to a particularly smarmy Ministry secretary, "I have a small matter of business I have to take care of, so if you will excuse me?" And he held out a hand to me and steered me pointedly away, actually out of the room and into the hall.

"Where are we going?" I asked in an undertone.

"To discuss something privately before I do something guaranteed to get my acceptance into the Auror program revoked," he said through the pleasant smile he maintained until we were out of sight of the crowded room.

I grinned. "They are a bit much, aren't they?" He just grimaced.

"I can't say I wasn't expecting it," he said with a sigh. "But still."

"Here." I opened one of the doors along the hall that I knew led to a small office that was rarely used. I figured we might as well seem as if we were discussing business should anyone happen upon us. I brought the lights up, then perched on the edge of one of the desks inside as Scorpius did the same, then did what I'd been doing all summer. "So, I was thinking maybe you and I could catch lunch sometime this week, to celebrate." Scorpius smiled and nodded, so I continued, "I'll invite Rose, and—"

"Could you please stop doing that?"

I'll admit; I was a bit taken aback. This marked the first time Scorpius had voiced any opposition to me about Rose all summer. So, yeah, I was momentarily surprised, but I recovered quickly.

"What?" I asked pointedly. "Try to get my two best friends to speak to one another again?"

"You don't know what happened," Scorpius muttered, staring at the carpet, his mouth set in a hard line, and anger flared momentarily inside of me. What I really wanted to say in response was, _No, I don't, because you haven't_ told _me!_

But what I actually said was, "According to Rose, all that happened is that you two drifted apart, and it seems to _me_ that the natural solution to that is to spend time together again, and so –"

"I'm getting Bonded in two weeks," Scorpius said abruptly, cutting me off. "Please stop trying to play matchmaker." I opened my mouth to defend myself, though what I was going to say, I hadn't quite worked out yet, but he interrupted me again before I was able to speak at all, saying, "And don't tell me that you don't know what I'm talking about. We both know you're smarter than that."

I looked away, my jaw tight as I tried to remain civil. "The Bonding's still on then?" I asked with forced cordiality, and I could tell Scorpius was trying as hard to keep from snapping at me as I was to keep from snapping at him.

"Yes," he said shortly. "There's no reason why it wouldn't be." And that's when I stopped being polite.

"There is, actually, a reason why," I said. "A fairly good reason, if I remember correctly."

"I'm not having this conversation with you again," he said flatly, straightening, and I knew he would walk out on me if I didn't force him to stay and have this out, because I was desperate, and if having this conversation again was what it took to stop this Bonding, then that's what I would do.

"Because I'm right," I said firmly, "and you know it!"

"Right about what, Al?" Scorpius demanded, turning on his heel to face me. "Right to meddle in everyone's lives? Right to constantly try and reorder the world if it's not panning out quite the way you'd like? Is that what you're right about, Al?" It was the summer three years ago all over again.

"You know damned well what I'm right about," I snarled, losing my patience entirely. It was time to call him out, consequences be damned. "I can't, in good conscience, stand by and watch you Bond yourself to someone you care nothing about!"

"I do care about Honoria," Scorpius shot back immediately. "I care about her a great deal, and I have all the respect in the world for her –"

"I'm sorry; I didn't hear you say anything about love," I interrupted, and yeah, I sneered a little. I'm not proud of it; my temper got the better of me. And it shut Scorpius down pretty effectively.

"Excuse me," he said in a clipped tone and turned to exit the room.

"I won't excuse you," I yelled at his retreating back. "I _can't_ excuse you! I can't _believe_ you're really going to marry someone else in two weeks when you're in love with my cousin!"

"I'm not marrying her," Scorpius tried to say, but I cut him off.

"That's what this means, and you know it, so don't bother debating semantics with me! And I still don't understand how you could _do_ something like this! You are in love with the same person you were in love with three years ago, and it's _not_ Honoria Ridgeton! I _know_ you, so don't try to tell me that's not true! How can you do this to Rose, to Honoria? How is it fair to either of them?" Really, that was the question I wanted an answer to the most. How could he do this to Rose? What had she done to him to deserve it?

"I am done with this conversation," he said again, teeth clenched, moving once more for the doorway, and I knew the time had come to play my trump card.

"She loves you, Scorpius!"

That stopped him, and the silence in the room rang as I waited for his response.

"Rose doesn't love me," he said finally, not turning around. "She showed me that, Al, three years ago, and I can't waste my life on someone who doesn't love me."

"Then why are you Bonding yourself to Honoria?" I challenged immediately, and Scorpius spun to face me, mouth open, ready to argue, but I didn't give him the chance. It was time to lay it all out on the table, say everything I'd been keeping in for years now, tell him everything that Rose had never been able to bring herself to. "Rose lied to you, Scorpius," I said, softer, but no less intense. "I don't know why, but she did. She loves you; she's loved you for _years_ , I don't even know how long, but I do know that she still does, and that spending time with you this summer has been slowly killing her!"

"Then it's a wonder you've been shoving us together for the past two months!" Scorpius snapped, finally at his breaking point. "Listen up, Al. My life doesn't need your hand in it, and I doubt very much that Rose's does, so do us both a favor and back off!"

"Well, maybe if the two of you could get your lives together on your own, I'd be able to!" I snapped, losing my own temper.

I have no idea how that exchange might have ended had we been left to ourselves to finish it. We were each madder with the other than we'd ever been, and I'm pretty sure I saw Scorpius's fist clench.

But we'll never know if our argument would have come to blows, because at that point, there was a knock on the doorframe, and the two of us turned as one to see the most unwelcome sight in the world – Rose, standing in the doorway, looking more furious than I'd ever seen her. And all that fury and barely contained rage was focused right on me. I paled and swallowed hard.

"Scorpius, my dad is looking for you," she said in a hard, quiet, controlled voice, her eyes never leaving mine. "Your absence is becoming conspicuous."

Scorpius slipped quickly and silently from the room. Lucky him. As for me, there was no escape, and I knew this wasn't going to be pretty. I had no idea how much of the argument Rose had overheard, but if the look on her face was any indication, it was enough to make her well and truly furious with me, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is a position you should pray you never find yourselves in.

"Rose," I started, searching desperately for something I could say that might placate her, get her back on my side, but she didn't even let me start.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she demanded, still in that quiet, controlled voice that is the most frightening thing I've ever heard.

"Rose," I said again.

"What the _hell_ , Al?" and there it was, the explosion I'd been bracing for. "'If the two of you could get your lives together on your own'?" she demanded.

"Rose, this is wrong, and you know it," I tried to insist, tried to brush over the unfortunate things she'd overheard. But no luck.

"Do you have any idea what you just _did_?" she shouted.

"Broke up a wedding, with any luck," I said blackly, glaring at the doorway Scorpius had just escaped through. Rose stepped closer to me, eyes blazing.

"No," she said forcefully. "You didn't." And with that, she shoved past me, like she had to get a decent distance away from me for fear of punching me in the face. Which was utterly bewildering to me. I would never have predicted that Rose would react this strongly to this situation. Then she turned back to me and shouted, "You may be a Healer in Training, Al, but you can't fix the world, okay? Not all of it is broken!"

"Sure looks like it from here," I shot back.

"Then move out of the way until you get a different point of view," she snapped. "How could you _do_ this?"

"Do what?" I asked, my anger returning because it was incomprehensible to me that neither one of them seemed to get this. "Keep my best friend from marrying someone he doesn't love? Very easily, Rose."

"You haven't kept him from _anything_ ," she snarled, "and arranged marriages aren't about _love_. They haven't been for centuries! They're supposed to be based on respect, for yourself and your partner, and _you_ have just made that impossible for him!"

"What are you _talking_ about?" I demanded, because she wasn't making any sense. How could she be standing there defending the same arranged marriage she'd called barbaric three months before? How could she be standing there angry on Scorpius's behalf instead of her own? It didn't make any sense.

"I'm _talking_ about _you_ and your inability to stay out of other people's lives!" she yelled then. "You've put him in an impossible position, and you've put me there, too! Did you really think, even for a minute, that Scorpius would ever back out of the promise he made this girl now that he's twenty-one? The literal parameters of that promise don't mean a _thing_ , and you know that. We're talking about _Scorpius_ , who has enough stuck up ideas about chivalry and nobility to be a Gryffindor, and so, in love or not, he would _never_ back out of the Bonding! I told you that _months_ ago!" She took a moment to cross her arms tightly across her chest, trying to keep them from shaking. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, then continued. "And the only thing enabling him to be Bonded to her while in love with someone else was the knowledge that that someone else did not love him in return."

I stared at her. She couldn't possibly be trying to make me believe that she didn't love Scorpius, had never loved Scorpius. "As long," she said loudly, speaking over my attempt to interrupt, "as there was no way his feelings could be returned, he could still respect her and himself in their union."

"But you _do_ love him!" I insisted stubbornly, because I _knew_ she did, though she'd never confirmed it to me. I _knew_ there was no way she could make the case that she didn't love him.

"That's not the _point_!" she exclaimed loudly, her frustration evident and just as high as mine.

"But you don't deny it!"

"God, Al, is that what you _want_?" she exploded, spreading her arms wide. "For me to admit that I love him? All right! _Yes_! I love him! Okay? I love him! I've loved him for years! Are you happy now?"

I watched my cousin crumple after that admission, after releasing those words that rang in the air around us. She sagged against a desk, her face buried in her hands, and suddenly, I put the missing piece in place. I watched tears stream down my cousin's face, and I saw with sudden clarity what I had missed before, and the realization hit me like a spell to the stomach.

"He _did_ tell you," I breathed. "When we were at school. He did tell you how he felt." Rose nodded, seemingly unable to speak.

It had never occurred to me. Not once. It had never occurred to me that Scorpius had actually gone through with telling her that he loved her that day. Because in my mind, if that had happened, there had only been one possible outcome, and I hadn't seen it. And since it wasn't possible that Rose wouldn't fall happily into his arms once he confessed his love, I had assumed that he'd chickened out. "Then why . . . ?" I asked, and I don't what the end of the question was actually going to be, I really don't. So it's a good thing Rose cut me off with a bitter laugh.

"You don't know what I did, Al," she said in a deadened voice. "I'm lucky he's willing to _talk_ to me. You don't know what I did."

My heart plummeted at her words, and I was suddenly filled with dread. But I had to know. "What did you do?" I asked, my voice as quiet as hers. She looked up at me, her eyes full of pain and regret.

"I broke his heart," she said simply. "I did it cruelly, I did it thoroughly . . ." She looked away from me and steeled herself, "and I did it on purpose."

I sucked in a breath in shock at those words, and Rose kept her gaze staunchly away from mine, her chin trembling ever so slightly, her eyes blinking furiously, and then the words, the explanation, came pouring out. "I have never been what my father wanted me to be. I'm a Ravenclaw who'd rather spend a night in the Forbidden Forest without a wand than have to get on a broomstick, and the biggest adventure I've ever had was almost getting strangled by the Venomous Tentacula in third year Herbology. I have spent my life disappointing him. Can you imagine what he would have gone through if I had ever brought a Malfoy home? He would never have forgiven me." She forced herself to meet my eyes then.

"So . . . you . . . ?" I said after a pause, still trying to wrap my head around all this.

"It was the only way," she whispered desperately, and it hit me that she was afraid I was disappointed in her, too. That she was now whispering desperately for my forgiveness, my understanding. "If I proved to him that I wasn't anyone to waste time or love on, he'd eventually move on. It was the only way to ensure that he'd end up happy."

On the last word, her voice broke, her breath hitched, and she started to cry, really cry, in a way I'd never seen my cousin do. And in that moment, I fully realized everything that she had been struggling with and straining against for the past three years. And I realized with a pang how much worse I had made that struggle. And I couldn't let her struggle alone any longer, couldn't let her believe for one more moment that I was in any way upset with what she'd done. I crossed to her immediately and held her close while she cried.

"Why not just be with him?" I whispered after a long moment.

"Because it wouldn't have worked!" she said, pushing away. I let her go, gave her her distance. "He would have given up everything for me, you know he would have. I wouldn't have, don't you see that? I wouldn't have given up everything for him. I wasn't brave enough. I didn't love him enough. And even if I had, with time, we would have regretted it. We would have had to sever ties with everyone, and slowly, regretting would have turned to resenting, and it would have pulled us apart."

"But things are different now," I whispered, not wanting to acknowledge the truth in what she said, not wanting to admit that what I had wanted so badly to happen for so long was never going to manifest. Rose shook her head.

"Not different enough. And it's too late. I love him. And that's why I can't be with him, even if he should come after me now. If he left Honoria to pursue me, and I accepted him, the same thing would happen. He'd regret breaking his promise to her for the rest of his life, and he'd eventually start to hate himself. I can't let that happen."

I looked at her then, my beautiful cousin, my strong and broken best friend who had put herself through so much so that the man she loved might be happier without her, and reflected back at me was the unflinching knowledge of how much worse I had made everything, for her and for him. I couldn't not see it, and the knowledge made me feel sick. "Rose," I said helplessly, trying to find the right thing to say, the right apology to make, the words that might have the smallest chance of beginning to fix all that I'd done, even though I didn't know what on earth those words might be.

"They're going to miss you at the party," she said, speaking over my silence, as if afraid of what I was going to say, fearful that my words would be censure or disappointment, and I didn't know how to begin to reassure her that they weren't. And so, with far too much left unsaid and unresolved and unabsolved, I made my way past her to the open door.

But I couldn't just leave, not with things like that. And so, helpless and tiny as I felt, I opened my mouth and said the one thing I thought might help even the tiniest bit. "Rose," I said. "I could never have forgiven myself. To see you every day for the rest of your life, alone and unhappy, knowing I could have done something to ease it. I – they teach us in healing that sometimes a broken bone has to be made worse before it can be set to heal. I just – I couldn't stand the idea that you might spend the rest of your life that way."

Rose nodded, blinking back new tears. "I know," she told me.

But it wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough.

I made my way back to the reception hall without really consciously deciding to go there. My feet moved of their own volition, because my mind was entirely too fixated on the stunning reality of what I'd just learned. Everything made sense now: Scorpius's anger with Rose, Rose's sudden departure, her reluctance to talk about Scorpius, her staunch avoidance of him even when the three of us were together. She'd been distancing herself from him so that he could move on and be happy. She had given up her closest friendship and the man that she loved so that he could have a happier life than the one he would have had with her at seventeen. Because once he was happy in a new life, she could do her best to do the same. She'd always had a plan. And her plan might have panned out exactly as she wanted, but for one thing.

Me.

How was it possible that two people with the same end goal could move in such stark opposition to one another?

The names and accusations that Rose and Scorpius had flung at me over the years were nothing in comparison to the names I called myself that night. Their censure and anger over my meddlesome ways were nothing compared to my self-loathing as I saw all the ways I had taken an already painful wound and made it excruciating for the both of them.

And yes, in hindsight, I was too hard on myself that night, just as I hadn't been hard enough on myself before that point. From where I view that summer now, my despondent determination to place the blame for Rose and Scorpius's failed relationship entirely on myself is just as childish as my stubborn refusal to stop trying to force them together had been. But that realization comes after years of separation from the events, so let's return to the story.

I returned to the reception hall in the midst of my existential crisis, and luckily, the first person I really encountered was Dad. He told me later I looked so pale and out of it when I reentered that he'd made a beeline for me out of genuine concern. "Al, are you all right?" he asked in an undertone, and I stared at him for a minute before shaking my head.

"No," I said. "I'm not. I –" But I didn't know how to tell him everything that had just happened, or even if I should. So I just said, "Can I go to your office?"

"Of course," Dad said immediately, then glanced around the room. "Give me five minutes and I'll meet you there."

I almost told him not to worry about it, that I just needed to lie down, but there was a part of me that wanted my father to come and fix what I couldn't. So in the end, I just nodded.

And true to his word, five minutes later, my father stepped into his office and shut the door gently behind him. "What happened, Al?" he asked, perching on the edge of his desk and waiting for me to speak.

I shook my head mutely. "I messed up, Dad," I said in a small voice. "Worse than I ever have before. Bad enough that . . . I don't think it's possible to fix it."

There was silence for a long moment, then Dad said, "Is there anything I can do?" I shook my head again.

"There isn't anything anyone can do," I said. "Except move forward, knowing every day that there are at least two people in the world who are worse off because I thought I had the right to meddle in their lives."

"Al," Dad said quietly. "Did you mean well?" I laughed without humor.

"I always mean well," I said bitterly, meeting his eye for the first time since he'd entered the room.

"Yes," he agreed. "You always do." Suddenly, I found myself blinking back tears.

"I don't think that makes it better," I whispered.

"Maybe not," he said quietly. "But it's a factor that can't be dismissed." We sat in silence for a second or two more, then Dad stood. "I'll check back up here when the reception winds down. And I'll make your excuses if you want to go home." I shook my head.

"I'm just gonna crash here, I think," I said quietly. "Until the party ends. If that's okay."

"Of course it's okay, Al," Dad said, a hand on my shoulder. "And if you think of anything I can do, please tell me."

I knew he meant it, and maybe that's why, despite my adamant promise that I'd never meddle in anyone's life again, I called out when he reached the door. "Dad? There is one thing." He looked at me, waiting. "Rose . . . she thinks Uncle Ron is disappointed in her." Dad's eyebrows shot up.

"In what way?" he asked.

"With the way her life has turned out," I said. "Because she wasn't a Gryffindor and she couldn't fly and she never got into trouble. She told me, she said that she's spent her life disappointing him. That she's never been what he wanted."

Dad frowned, then shook his head. "How someone as smart as Rose could ever think . . ." He trailed off and shook his head again. "I'll take care of it," he said, and I nodded, a lump in my throat. After a slight hesitation, Dad said, "Al?" and when I'd brought my attention back to him, "You may have meddled," he said, "but Rose and Scorpius made their own decisions."

I thought briefly about asking how he'd known, but then realized that I could probably answer that question on my own, so I just forced a tight smile and said, "Maybe."

Dad left then, shutting the door quietly behind him, and I was alone with my guilt in the darkened room. I forced myself to sit there and replay the whole summer in my head, forced myself to truly see the extent of what I'd put my best friends through, forced myself to see the spilling of Rose's secret through her eyes and Scorpius's, forced myself to see the damage that choice would have on their future. I was well and truly miserable by the end of it, but why I shouldn't I be, I reasoned? After all, I'd wanted the three of us united again. So it only made sense that I force myself to be as miserable as I'd made them with my choices.

The smallest thread of hope that I allowed myself to grasp was that maybe, just maybe, Scorpius would ignore what I had said. Maybe he would forget about it, dismiss it out of hand, never believe that Rose had loved him once and loved him still. Because it was like she had said. If he truly believed himself betrayed by her, maybe he could be happy one day, married to Honoria Ridgeton, the girl he respected and cared about but didn't love. Maybe.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

* * *

After the disastrous Auror Reception, I kept to myself for the next two weeks. I didn't leave the house except to go to work. I shut myself away from even my family. I didn't want to talk to Rose or Scorpius, and I didn't want to talk about them, not knowing the entirety of what I'd done to them. I did penance those two weeks. I continued to force myself to relive all the meddling I'd done in my life, to think about the far-reaching consequences of all those meddlesome actions. And I forced myself to go to Scorpius's Bonding ceremony, to truly support my best friend as I should have been dong all along, and as further punishment. Yeah, I can beat a dead horse with the best of them.

Purely by coincidence, I arrived at the chapel just as my aunt and uncle did, and on seeing them, I was filled anew with shame, but also with one moment of wild hope that Rose had come too, that she had changed her mind and was here to stop the ceremony and set things right.

And in the next moment, I scolded myself severely, because of course Rose wasn't there. She wasn't there, and that was _my_ fault.

There has never been anyone so good at kicking himself when he's down as me.

But the real moment of shame came when Uncle Ron pulled me aside before we went in. I was convinced he knew what I'd done to Rose, and I'd seen my uncle in a rage before. I had no desire to see one directed at me.

But my uncle took me completely by surprise when he said, "I want to thank you, Al."

"For what?" I asked.

"What your father told me, about Rose . . . I know that came from you." I colored at that, partly from embarrassment, partly from shame.

"It was nothing," I said softly, more to the ground than to him.

"Well, it wasn't nothing," he said then. "It was quite a bit, actually. I had no idea she felt that way, and the idea of her continuing to . . ." He broke off, a pained look lining his face. "I only wish I'd known sooner," he finished softly. "Maybe if I had, this day would be going much differently."

"I think the way today turned out is more my fault than yours," I confessed, even quieter. Honestly, at that point, I was so wracked with guilt, I'd have done just about anything to try and dispel some of it.

Uncle Ron squinted up at the sky for a long moment, his mouth tight. "Maybe you're right," he said finally. "And maybe I'm right, too. But at the end of the day – they're adults, Al, and they made their own decisions."

"Ron," Aunt Hermione called, gesturing significantly to her watch and preventing me from having to come up with anything to say to my uncle's last statement. I mean, I knew he had a point, but . . . my guilt. I was reveling in it.

Anyway, Uncle Ron sighed heavily and said, "Come on. Time to face the music," looking about as miserable as I felt.

At the back of the chapel stood Scorpius and his parents. Uncle Ron stiffened at the sight of Draco Malfoy, and Mr. Malfoy did likewise. If I'd been in a different frame of mind, it would have been highly amusing, but given the circumstances, I was just barely able to smile in response to the stiff and formal, "Draco," and "Ron," coming from the two adults ahead of me.

I watched this exchange, and then, all of a sudden, I found myself face to face with Scorpius.

The air was almost charged between us as we stood there, staring at one another. After a long, heavy pause, Scorpius offered me his hand. It was peace offering, and I knew it, and I took it, but I couldn't help but notice that the Scorpius seemed to carry a weight, a sadness, I'd never seen before. And I knew something had to be said, but he said it first.

"I – thank you for coming," he said, and I knew he was sincere.

I opened my mouth to say "of course," or to apologize, or express the support I'd never offered him on this, but before I could do any of that, we were interrupted by a young woman looking beautiful in intricate white dress robes lined in silver. Though I'd never seen her before, there was no mistaking her – she was Honoria Ridgeton. She had to be.

"I'm so sorry to interrupt," she said with a winning but apologetic smile, directed at me, "but I really must speak with Scorpius for a moment." Scorpius frowned in concern, glancing at me, then looking back to her and silently asking a question in a way I'd never seen him do with anyone other than me and Rose. "It's important," she said, answering the question he hadn't asked.

With a nod, he looked back at me, an apology in his eyes, but I shook my head and waved him away. Honoria wasn't the only one he could have a silent conversation with.

"Excuse me, please," he said, to me and the guests behind me, and he let Honoria lead him away.

"Everything is all right, I hope?" Aunt Hermione asked of Astoria Malfoy. Mrs. Malfoy smiled.

"Oh, I'm sure," she said easily. "When you essentially get married twice, it tends to cause twice the jitters. Thank you for coming, Hermione." I should note that Aunt Hermione and Mrs. Malfoy were old friends.

Anyway, Aunt Hermione was on the verge of replying when Scorpius's father said evenly, "If you will all head into the chapel, we will begin shortly."

I watched Mrs. Malfoy give Aunt Hermione a private, knowing look, and then I let Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron lead me into the chapel with Hugo, but I couldn't help glimpsing Scorpius and Honoria through the window of a small room off the entry, engaged with what looked like an intense and serious conversation.

For the second time that day, I felt hope stirring within me, but I suppressed it as quickly as I had the first time. _Stop it_ , I thought fiercely. _You're not doing that anymore, so stop it._

"So how's Rose?" I asked Hugo one we were settled in the pew. His look blackened in a surprising and frightening way.

"She's sitting in the rose garden," he said with a scowl, "letting the man she loves marry someone else. Dad tried to convince her to come, but she's as stubborn as she ever was."

I was forcefully reminded that Hugo had always been the observant one.

"The situation is . . . complicated," I found myself saying, and was met with a snort from my cousin.

"Aren't they always?" he asked darkly. "Politics are complicated, Al. War is complicated. Being in love with someone who loves you back? That seems pretty simple to me. And if you're lucky enough to have that . . . my sister is one of the smartest people I know, but you're an idiot if you let that slip away without at least fighting for it."

I was spared having to reply to this by the sudden music that filled the chamber, signaling the start of the ceremony. Scorpius took his place at the front of the chapel, and then Honoria came in, escorted by her father. I kept my focus on Scorpius, but his face was strangely unreadable as he watched her coming toward him.

When she reached the small square altar, Scorpius turned to face her, and I could no longer see his face, so I watched Honoria's instead, barely paying attention to the officiator as he described the Bonding Ceremony and the commitment that Scorpius and Honoria were making to each other.

I found myself watching Honoria almost desperately. Because I knew the moment was approaching – the point of no return, the time when I would have to accept Honoria as part of Scorpius's reality, no chance for that to change. So I watched her face like a hawk, trying to discern her good qualities from half a room away, trying to find something in her face that would help me reconcile with the fact that she would be a part of my best friend's life forever.

And because I was watching her so closely, I saw what was happening an instant before everyone else did.

Honoria stiffened, her eyes flitting back and forth between the officiator and Scorpius. Her hand tightened in his for one moment before she gave Scorpius one last panicked look and spoke suddenly, cutting off the officiator by saying, "I'm sorry," with wide, terrified eyes and a head that was shaking back and forth almost outside of her control. "I can't do this," she exclaimed, and while everyone around her was too shocked to move, she pulled her hands from Scorpius's, gathered her skirts, and turned and fled.

There was one half-moment of shocked silence before the whispering started, and Scorpius, belatedly, yelled, "Honoria! Honoria, wait!" and went tearing out after her.

I sat in my pew, frozen, convinced that at any moment, I'd snap out of this clearly imagined daydream and back to the reality where Scorpius's intended hadn't just left him at the altar.

"Well," Hugo said in my ear. "That was unexpected." I just shook my head, too stunned to say anything else.

Among all the twittering and whispering, I saw Mr. Malfoy in calm but serious conversation with Mr. Ridgeton, who looked far less calm. Astoria Malfoy, with all the grace and poise I would expect from her, stood and spoke to all the assembled. "Ladies and gentlemen," she said, calm and unruffled, "if you will all wait calmly for just a moment, I am sure we will be offered an explanation."

We all sat there for what seemed like hours but couldn't have been more than a few minutes, and the longer I sat there, replaying what had just happened, the more certain I became in a suspicion I think had started forming the moment Honoria had asked to speak with Scorpius.

I hadn't been able to see Scorpius's face, but I had seen hers. And before the flight, before the stiffening, before the look of panic had entered her eye, I was almost positive I had seen her lock eyes with Scorpius and give him the tiniest of smiles. An act that shouldn't have happened just before a bride left her bridegroom. An act I would have missed entirely if I hadn't been watching her so closely.

And when Scorpius re-entered a few minutes later, saying in a breathless voice, "I couldn't stop her. I couldn't catch her. She's gone," and sending the room into pandemonium, I sat without moving in my pew, certain that he'd looked just a little too lost, sounded just a little too distressed. And when he beat a hasty exit a few moments later, he just a little too staunchly avoided looking toward the corner where I sat.

And for the third time that day, hope swelled inside me. And though I didn't suppress it as firmly as I had the other two times that day, I did firmly remind myself of what Uncle Ron had said – Rose and Scorpius were adults, and they had to make their own decisions. Whatever would happen next had to happen because of them.

Like I said. I was eight when I realized I had the power to fix things. I was a week away from twenty-one when I realized I shouldn't always try.

Nevertheless, I went home that day with a lighter heart than I'd had in weeks. I didn't know what would come out of this, and I knew, hard as it would be, I had to wait and see and not stir the waters. But at least I felt like we all might finally be able to move forward again.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

* * *

The two malicious and conniving gits I call my best friends strung me along for three entire days after Scorpius's botched Bonding Ceremony, and I have yet to forgive them for it.

I waited, in tense and strained silence, for three days, waiting to hear something, waiting for Scorpius to come talk to his best friend about whatever had gone down, waiting to hear anything really, determined not to go after him and pester, determined to let him live his own life in his own time and include me when he was ready. But man was it frustrating waiting for him to be ready.

Well, you might ask, did Scorpius _know_ he was putting me through this inner turmoil? Why, yes. Yes, he did.

 _Finally_ , after 72 hours of silence, I received the following letter:

_Eternal and Compulsive Meddler,_

_Tomorrow. 1 pm. Fortescue's. Don't be late._

It wasn't signed, but it didn't need to be. I knew who had sent it. And so, the next day, I showed up at Fortescue's ice cream parlor, nervous as hell because I honestly didn't know how this was going to go, but I was willing to let Scorpius say whatever he needed to say.

So imagine my surprise when, I see, sitting at an outside table, not Scorpius, but Rose, whom I had also spent three days leaving alone. It could, of course, have been coincidence that she was there at the exact time I was supposed to meet Scorpius, but somehow, I didn't think so.

"Rose," I said, crossing to her. She looked up and greeted me with a smile which I was in no state to return. "Are you meeting Scorpius, too?" I asked, hoping I didn't sound as nervous as I felt.

"I'm sorry?" she asked with a frown.

"Scorpius," I said. "He sent me an owl telling me to meet him here. He asked you to meet him, too?"

"Oh," she said, then hesitated slightly before saying, "Yes, you could say that." I should have picked up on that hesitation. I didn't.

"I wonder what it's about," I said, sitting down, and again, I should have wondered why she didn't seem more concerned about the prospect of the meeting, and yeah, maybe that should have been a clue, but I wasn't quite thinking straight.

"I imagine that will be made clear soon enough," was all she said, and looking back, I still can't believe how thoroughly I was swindled by the pair of them.

But if I'm going to tell this story, then I have to tell all of it, even the embarrassing parts. And so I will tell you that when Scorpius walked up to the table a few minutes later, I looked up at him and said seriously, "Rose and I are both here. So what did you want to talk to us about?"

There was a long pause in which Scorpius looked between me and Rose, slightly befuddled, then sat at the third seat of the table, saying, "I think you've got your pronouns wrong, Al," and then it was my turn to look befuddled.

"What do you mean?" I asked, looking to Rose to share in my confusion, but instead, she answered me.

"He means," she said slowly, exchanging a look with Scorpius, "that _he_ didn't invite _us_ here. _We_ . . . invited you."

That took far longer to sink in than it should have.

"You . . . invited me," I repeated slowly. They nodded. "As in, both of you, together, invited me?"

"Yes," Scorpius said, drawing out the word and looking at Rose, who returned his glance with a smile she was having trouble suppressing.

I looked back and forth between the pair of them, noting how they seemed much more at ease with each other than I had seen them since the end of our seventh year. I took in how, despite it being a small round table with only three chairs, they were both sitting much closer to each other than either one was to me. And, my powers of observation making a late entrance to the situation, I finally noticed the angle of their arms to one another, making it almost 100% likely that they were holding hands under the table.

"You conniving little gits," I said to the pair of them, and because they got great pleasure out of infuriating me, I saw both of them smirk or suppress smiles at that. I continued my tirade. "Three days! Three _days_ , I've been good! I haven't asked any questions, I haven't pestered either one of you, I've just sat, quietly, in my house, waiting to hear something following that – that — theatrical fiasco —"

"Theatrical fiasco?" Scorpius repeated, one eyebrow raised, thoroughly enjoying my displeasure.

"Yes!" I said firmly, sticking to my guns. "That little show that you and Honoria Ridgeton put on for everyone, the scared first time bride show, the shocked and jilted groom show, but if she actually had a sudden change of heart and fled the chapel without you knowing she was about to do it, I will eat my hat!"

"You're not wearing a hat," Rose pointed out, as if that was a logical response. I glared at her.

"You two. Spill. Now," I said, in a voice that I hoped was impossible to disobey. My mum has that voice. I've been trying to successfully recreate it for years. And either it worked, or they decided they had tortured me long enough because after one last glance at each other, Scorpius said, "Starting where?" like he was actually planning to talk about it.

I looked back and forth between them for a moment, then said, "Second to last day of term, seventh year. You left the dorm to go tell Rose how you felt. What happened?"

And so they told me everything. I'll give them this – they left nothing out. They told me how Scorpius had poured his heart out and Rose had led him to believe that she didn't feel the same. They told me how Scorpius had become suspicious over the next two days and confronted her about it on the train ride home. They told me how that confrontation had ended, with Rose's pointed and deliberate, "How could a Weasley ever love a Malfoy?" and their searing, angry kiss.

So much fell into place as they told me their story, so many things I had only guessed at, and more than a few that I'd had no inkling of. They confirmed that Rose had left on a trip around the world to get away from Scorpius, and I learned that Scorpius had overheard all of that so-revealing conversation the night of the Auror Reception, that they spoken about it, if you could really call it speaking, and come to their hart-breaking understanding, both thinking the door was shut, but determined to live despite that, independent of each other. To do as Rose had wished and do their best to be happy.

And then he told me what had happened at the Bonding, what Honoria had said when she'd pulled him away, that she didn't want to do this, and she didn't think he did, either. How they arranged the jilting, her supposed cold feet. How he'd gone to Rose's at Uncle Ron's direction, and how he and his father had finally cleared the air after twenty years.

"And?" I asked when all this had been told. "Now, you're what? Engaged?"

Scorpius looked at Rose then, and you could feel the love pouring out of him, pouring out of both of them, and her smile lit up the air between them. "Yeah," Scorpius said, talking to me, but not actually talking to me.

"But," Rose said a moment later, dragging her eyes away from him, "don't go spreading it around. We'll announce it in a few months, but until then, we're keeping it quiet. So whatever you do, don't tell Lily?"

I laughed at that, as I was supposed to. And then I took a deep breath and started to make my apologies.

"I'm sorry," I said to them. "Really, I am, I was presumptuous and an idiot, and—"

Scorpius stopped me with a raised hand and a regretful look. "Yes," he said simply. "Maybe so. But we didn't help. I was so angry with Rose I couldn't bear reliving it by telling you what had happened."

"Which was what I was counting on," Rose broke in with an apologetic glance at him, then at me. "And of course I couldn't tell you because you'd have gone and fixed it," she said, and it was the first time my cousin had spoken of my meddling with anything like endearment in her voice. "So I left instead. I left so Scorpius would move on and so you couldn't fix us. Because you would have. You're that good at it."

"I'm still sorry," I told them both sincerely.

"And so are we," Scorpius said. Those proved to be words as magic as 'Al fixed it,' in many ways.

And over the next year, we rebuilt our friendship. Not that there was that much to do, strictly speaking, but we were all older and wiser and had learned a lot of lessons in the three and a half years we'd spent apart. That year, then, was good for us.

And the next summer, they married. I stood by Scorpius as witness, and Rose had Ivanna. The ceremony was small and perfect for them, and it was impossible to not be caught up in the love that they had for each other, a love hard won and thoroughly earned.

Watching these two unlikely families become one was a real treat, and it's hard to say if favorite part of that day was watching my aunt Hermione dance with Draco Malfoy, or watching my uncle Ron watch Aunt Hermione dance with Draco Malfoy.

Actually, in all honesty, it's not hard at all. Aunt Hermione dancing with Scorpius's father and all, the highlight of that day was watching my two best friends dance together as man and wife for the first time, completely oblivious to anything except each other. Radiating off of them, I saw fully realized what I had only glimpsed when we were 14, and though a younger me might have crowed with pride at what _he_ had achieved, after all we'd been through, I found myself not self-congratulating at all. Rather, all my pride was for them, and what they had struggled so hard to find.

I was in the midst of all this contemplation during their first dance when a voice interrupted my thoughts, saying, "He never looked at me like that."

Startled, I turned to find a familiar looking blonde woman standing beside me, looking out at Rose and Scorpius, and for a moment, I thought I had imagined the voice. But when I said, "I'm sorry?" she glanced up at me, a half-smile on her face.

"Scorpius," she clarified. "He never looked at me the way he looks at Rose. Not once."

I frowned, puzzled, trying to place her. "Should he have?" I asked, confused.

"Ah, how quickly we forget," she said with a theatrical sigh. "Nice to know I left such an impression." At that, she smiled at me, and with that, she slid into place in my head.

"Honoria Ridgeton," I said. She nodded.

"The almost bride," she said, and I couldn't help but feel that every word out of her mouth was teasing me somehow. "That's me."

"Do Rose and Scorpius know you're here?" I asked then, and she laughed.

"Relax, I'm not gate crashing," she said. "They invited me."

"Ah," I offered then, because I didn't really know what else to say. But that didn't stop me from saying something anyway. "So, what, you're here regretting your decision?"

"Are you kidding me?" she asked then, as if what I'd said was the dumbest thing she'd ever heard. " _Look_ at them. Why on _earth_ would I regret a decision that helped _that_ to manifest? Al Potter, you're supposed to be intelligent. Don't let your determination to dislike me get in the way of that."

'Sputtering,' is, perhaps the kindest word to describe my reaction to those words. I mean, yes, Rose and Scorpius were that blunt with me all the time, but I had known them most of my life. This woman was a stranger, and up until she'd said my name, I hadn't been certain that she'd even known who I was. Apparently, I was mistaken in that regard.

"What makes you think I had any sort of determination to dislike you?" I asked when I could properly form coherent thoughts again.

"Please, Mr. Potter," she said, making it very clear that she felt the question beneath me. "I know for a fact that Scorpius invited you to meet me countless times, and you always, without fail, found an excuse to refuse the invitation. And I certainly can't say I don't understand why. You were, I assume, working toward this eventuality, after all, and I stood in the way of that. I understand completely. But I hope you can now realize that the situation was very much out of my control, and if I'd been aware of it, I would certainly have moved to rectify it sooner."

There are less than a handful of people who have ever rendered me speechless, but she achieved it. "How do you know who I am?" I finally asked, and she snorted, distinctly unladylike.

"Al Potter, in the time I have known him, Scorpius has managed to talk about you at least once in nearly every conversation we've had. It's enough to set a girl to wondering." I ignored that implication. "Who else would you have been, standing witness beside him today?" She didn't give me time or opportunity to answer. "No, Mr. Potter," she said briskly instead. "I do not regret my decision; I rejoice in it. Seeing them? I want that," she said, her tone growing more earnest and longing. "Never let it be said that I settled. That's what I told my parents, when I had to face the inevitable confrontation after our failed Bonding. Never let it be said that I settled. As a very wise fictional character from a Muggle novel you probably haven't read once said, 'Only the very deepest love will induce me into matrimony.' Well, her film counter-part said that, anyway, and please don't ask me how I've come to see a Muggle film of any sort. It is a very long story and not a terribly interesting one."

I was staring by this point, at this utterly unfathomable woman standing beside me, speaking frankly and openly as if we had been close friends for a very long time rather than unofficial acquaintances of only a few minutes, rattling off more words in a minute than even my younger sister was capable of.

"Despite the way I talk, I have never done anything truly crazy with my life, Al Potter," she said simply, and the number of times she was saying my full name was a little off-putting. "But love . . . well, that's something altogether different. And I want, so badly, to experience the craziness of love. To lose my mind and my reason and my senses. To speak once with a young man, and have him possess my thoughts and my daydreams for days afterward. To act on impulse and be utterly unable to exert control over my emotions. I want to be swept up in the tide of love, to be overwhelmed by it because I have been overwhelmed by very few things in this world, but this seems important. That is what I want – insane and inexplicable passion. And it was never going to be with Scorpius." She turned then, and looked me in the eye.

"Have I frightened you away yet, Al Potter?" she asked me.

"Surprisingly, no," I said, because strange as she was coming off, there was something captivating about her as well.

Just then, the band moved smoothly into a new song, and other couples were invited to join the bride and groom on the dance floor. Honoria arched an eyebrow in my direction. "Well?" she said expectantly. "Are you going to stand there like a lump all night, or are you going to ask a pretty girl to dance?"

"Why? Have you seen any around?" I asked, feigning interest as I peered past her. She laughed, delighted.

"I like you, Al Potter," she declared then, and her grin was infectious. "So dance with me."

And so we danced, one dance, no more. And after that, she disappeared, and I didn't see her again that night.

But something about her stayed with me, and in the coming days, I found myself captivated, my thoughts and daydreams possessed by her eyes and smile and the teasing tone of her voice. I found myself unable to get her out of my mind, my emotions no longer fully under my control, my mind and reason and sense lost to the remembrance of the dance and the banter we'd shared.

But that story is not this story, and this story is long and cumbersome enough as it is, and so, I will leave the bewitching Honoria for another time.

For the story of Rose and Scorpius came, in many ways, to a close that night. And as I stood before the assembled party, a flute of champaign in my hand, and gazed at my two best friends, struggling to find the right words to say to toast their future happiness, I couldn't help but be bombarded with how far we come and how much we'd been through. And so, in the end, I think, my toast was not what people expected.

"I think a lot of you who know me are expecting me to say 'I told you so' at any moment now," I said, the words greeted with a smattering of laughter. I smiled in acknowledgment. "I think Rose and Scorpius themselves are expecting that, actually." At that, Rose lifted her glass slightly and Scorpius lifted an eyebrow. "But I'm not going to," I said, and I could hear the shift. Rose and Scorpius looked momentarily surprised, and I plowed ever firmly onward. "I'm not going to take credit for this, because in all honesty, I really had very little to do with it. Don't get me wrong, I'd like to be able to take credit. When you see something this right, this perfect, playing out in front of you, you _want_ very much to be able to say, 'I had something to do with that! I'm the reason that exists!' But I'm not. Rose and Scorpius have walked a long and hard road to get to this place, but they've walked it on their own, without my help."

I paused there, collecting my thoughts, looking down and trying to ignore the shocked looks on many of the face before me. "Aunt Hermione," I found her in the crowd, "has this rose garden, and she's had it as long as I can remember. And when we were little, I think she desperately wanted one of us to like them as much as she did, so she would teach us all about them. I don't remember much of those lessons, but I do remember being told that tending roses was a lot about knowing when to actually tend them and when to sit back and leave them well enough alone. I would have been an awful rose tender, because the art of knowing when to leave something well enough alone is one I never quite mastered."

Again, a smattering of laughter rang out after that, most of it coming from Rose and Scorpius, and I smiled, accepting it. Things were okay now. I could be self-deprecating. "But there are a number of things in this world that thrive best when left alone, and the more you try to meddle, the less progress you make. So I can't claim credit for this." I turned once more to Rose and Scorpius. "Because if this had been left entirely in my hands, I don't know that we'd be sitting here today. This grew without my help. In many ways, this grew in spite of my help. I did a little. But not enough to claim credit.

"I have known Rose my whole life, and I might as well have known Scorpius that long. And there are no two people better suited to one another than these two. So here's to them. To Rose and Scorpius, and all they have the potential to become."

And the glasses were raised and the words were echoed, and my two best friends started their life together.

And while there is more I could certainly tell, every story has to end sometime, and this seems as good a time as any. I was asked for my story. But my story is inexorably linked to theirs, so I hope this will suffice. If not, you have my deepest apologies. But such is life, sometimes. I hope you will not walk away too terribly disappointed. For this is the most important story I have to offer: the story of my two best friends and how they finally came to find each other. If you look close enough, it's my story as well, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

_Fin_

* * *

_Please consider leaving a review.  
_


End file.
